The Western comrade

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California State Library

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May 1917

Price 10c

:: Next Month: "Celebrating May Day at Llano" ::

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The Gateway To Freedom

Through Co-operative Action

THE LLANO DEL RIO CO-OPERATIVE COLONY Is located in
the beautiful Antelope Valley, in the northeastern part of
Los Angeles County, Southern California. This plain lies
between the San Gabriel spur of the Sierra Madres on the south
and the Tehachapi range on the north. The Colony is on the north
slope of the San Gabriel range. It is almost midway between
Palmdale, on the Southern Pacific, and Victorville, on the Santa
Fe railroad.

The Llano del Rio Co-operative Colony is made up of persons
who believe in the application of the principles of co-operation
to the widest possible extent. Virtually all of the residents are
Socialists. It is a practical and convincing answer to those who
have scoffed at SociaHst principles, who have said that "it won't
work," who have urged many fallacious arguments. In the three
years since it was established, the Colony has demonstrated thor-
oughly the soundness of its plan of operation and its theory. To-
day it is stronger than ever before in its history.

GENERAL INFORMATION

The Llano del Rio Colony is the greatest Community enterprise
ever attempted. It was founded by Job Harriman, May Isl. I9I4,
and is solving the problem of disemployment and business failure.
It offers a way to provide for the future welfare of the workers
and their families.

An abundance of clear, sparkling water coming from mountain
springs is sufficient to irrigate thousands of fertile acres. The
climate is mild and delightful, the soil is fertile, and markets are
not far distant.

The Llano del Rio Colony is a horticultural, agricultural, and
stock-raising enterprise, with such manufacturing as will supply the
needs of the colonists, with perhaps something to sell when the
Colony has grown.

It is a perfect example of Co-operation in Action. No corranunity
organized as it is, was ever established before.

The purpose is to solve the problem of unemployment by provid-
ing steady employment for the workers ; to assure safety and com-
fort for the future and for old age; to guarantee education for the
children in the best schools ; and to provide a social life amid sur-
roundings better than can be found in the competitive world.

It has more than 800 residents, making it the largest town in the
Antelope Valley. More than 200 children attend the schools. Part
of the children get meals at the school; some live at the Indus-
trial school all the time. The Montessori school is in operation,
taking the children from 21/2 ^o 6 years of age. A new school
building is soon to be built on the new townsite. The County
school and the Colony Industrial schools are both in operation.

The Colony owns a fine herd of 125 Jersey and Holstein cattle,
100 head of young stock are on the range, being heifersc'ancj c^altes ' I
up to 2 years of age. Over 100 head of horses and,.Enu1e^j> Jn-c' c
eluding colts, arc owned by the Colony. These, with the tractors
and caterpillar engine, four trucks, and numerous gutp^s, do (l^e ^ ,
hauling and the work on the land. , \c'' %' c\- s^^ri

A recent purchase of Duroc-Jersey sows gives the Colorfy^^'tW^ptj^-'^ . \
two registered high-class breeding sows and a splendid boar, the
nucleus of a great development along this line. Many new pens
have been built. Registration will be kept up and the raising of
fine hogs made one of the leading industries. There are also some
fine Berkshires. and a large number of grade sows.

Much nursery stock has been planted, a vineyard of 40 acres put
out, and many fruit trees set this spring. The Colony has more
than 400 acres of orchards.

Community gardening is successful, and an increased acreage
will be put in each year.

The ideal is to farm on an extensive scale, using all manner of
efficient labor saving machinery and methods, with expert and ex-
perienced men in charge of the different departments.

Llano possesses more than 668 stands of bees. They arc cared
for by expert bee men of long experience. This department ex-
pects to have several thousand stands in a few years.

The Colony has secured timber from the San Gabriel Reserve,

and has a well equipped sawmill. Lumber worth $35 to $40 a thou-
sand costs the Colony only a few dollars a thousand.

Social life is delightful, baseball and football teams, dances, pic-
nics, swimming, hunting, camping, all being popular. A band, sev-
eral orchestras, a dramatic club, and other organizations assist in
making the social occasions enjoyable.

Alfalfa does extraordinarily well at Llano. Much has been plant-
ed and the acreage will be increased as rapidly as possible. Six
good cuttings a season can be depended on. Ditches lined with
cobblestone set in Llano lime, making them permanent, conserve
water and insure economy. They will be built as fast as possible.
A square mile has been set aside for the new city. With the
sawmill running, the lime kiln producing a very superior lime, and
with sand and rock abundant and adobe brick easily manufactured,
the time is near when permanent buildings will be erected on the
new site. It will be a city different in design from any other in the
world, with houses of a distinctively different architecture. Houses
will be comfortable, sanitary, handsome, home-like, modern, and
harmonious with their surroundings, and will insure greater privacy
than any other houses ever constructed. They are unique and de-
signed especially for Llano.

LLANO INDUSTRIES AND INSTITUTIONS

Among the industries of Llano, to which new ones are con-
stantly being added, are: Printshop, shoe shop, laundry, cannery,
cleaning and dyeing, warehouse, machine shop, blacksmith shop,
rug works, planing mill, paint shop, lime kiln, saw mill, dairy, cab-
inet shop, nursery, alfalfa, orchards, poultry yards, rabbitry, gar-
dens, hog raising, two stages, lumbering, magazine, newspaper, doc-
tors' offices, woodyard, vinegar works, bakery, fish hatchery, bar-
ber shop, dairy goats, baths, swimming pool, studios, two hotels.
drafting room, post office, commissary, camping ground. Industrial
school, grammar school, Montessori school, commercial classes, li-
brary, women's exchange, two weekly dances, brass band, mandolin
club, two orchestras, quartets, socialist local, jeweler.

COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT

THE LLANO DEL RIO COMMUNITY has a remarkable form
of management that is the result of evolution. The manage-
ment of the affairs of the Colony industries is in the hands of
the department managers. In each department there are divisions.
Over some of these divisions are foremen. All these are selected
for their experience and fitness for the position. At the department
meetmgs as many persons as can crowd m the room are always
present. These meetings are held regularly and they are unique
in that no motions are ever made, no resolutions adopted and no
minutes are kept. The last action on any matter supercedes all
fbriA^i^ ^cli(Jn ^ndc'this stands until the plans are changed. The
plan Si ^orli^n^^^ost Admirably and smoothly. At these meetings the
work 'is' drsciissed and planned, reports are given, teams allotted,
worl^ers ^aje^ shifted to the point where the needs are greatest,
^nd ^mach^ijerj' fs^^ put 'or designated work, transportation is ar-
lajiiSed, w^t$ ^r«^^ njad^cknovm and filled as nearly as possible.
The board of directors, members of which are elected by the
stockholders, meets once a week and has charge of the financial
and business management of the enterprise. These directors are
on the same basis as all their comrades in the colony. At the
general assembly all persons over eighteen years of age, residing
in the colony, have a voice and vole.

NO CONSTITUTION OR BY-LAWS

MANY persons who want to know how the affairs of the
Llano del Rio Community are conducted think, in order to
get this information, they must secure a copy of a con-
stitution and by-laws. There is no constitution. The Llano Com-
munity contents itself with a "declaration of principles" which is
printed below. The management of the Colony rests with the
board of managers, a member of which is the superintendent
and his two assistants. These managers are selected for their
fitness and ability. The business and financial affairs of the enter-

^

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prise are conducted by the board of directors who are elected by

the stockholders. The corporation by-laws are the stereotyped cor-
poration by-laws of almost every state. The only innovation is in
the restricting of einyone from voting more than 2000 shares of
stock, regardless of how many shares are held. As this is to be
the ultimate holding of every member, this is considered a strong
protective clause. The incorporation charter is also the usual type
and gives the corporation the right to transact almost all manner
of business. The Nevada corporation laws are liberal, safe, and
well construed. There is no disposition on the part of state
officials to interfere.

DECLAR.'MION OF PRINCIPLES

IN conducting the affairs of the Llano del Rio Ginununity it
has been found that the fewer inflexible rules and regulations
the greater the harmony. Instead of an elaborate constitution
and a set of laws the colonists have a Declaration of Principles
and they live up to the spirit of them. The declaration follows :

Things which are used productively must be o\\Tied collectively.

The rights of the Community shall be paramount over those of
any individual.

Liberty of action is only permissible when it does not restrict
the liberty of another.

Law is a restriction of liberty and is only just when operating
for the benefit of the Gammunity at large.

Values created by the Community shall be vested in the Com-
munity alone.

The individual is not justly entitled to more land than is suffi-
cient to satisfy a reasonable desire for peace and rest. Productive
land held for profit shall not be held by private ownership.

Talent and intelligence are gifts which should nghtly be used
in the service of others. The development of these by education
is the gift of the Community to the individual, and the exercise of
greater ability enritles none to the false rewards of greater pos-
sessions, but only to the joy of greater service to others.

Only by identifying his interests and pleasures with those of
others can man find real happiness.

The duty of the individual to the Community is to develop ability
lo the greatest degree possible by availing himself of all educational
facilities and to devote the whole extent of that ability to the
service of all.

The duty of the Community to the individual is lo administer
justice, to elimmate greed and selfishness, to educate a\\ and to aid
any in time of age or misfortune.

LLANO OFFERS YOU ESCAPE FROM—

THE electric light bill, the water bill, the doctor's bill, the drug
bill, the telephone bill, the gas bill, the coal bill, the dentist's
bill, the school book supplies bill, the sewer assessment bill,
and car fare, the annoyance of the back door peddler and beggar
(Henry Dubbs who think the trouble Is individual hard luck),
the hundred and one greater and smaller burdens on the house-
holder, and the lean weeks caused by dlsemployment and the con-
sequent fear of the future. There is no landlord and no rent "s
charged.

While they are charged with living expenses, for food and cloth-
ing, the colonists never fear meeting the grocery bill, the milk,
the clothing bill, the laundry bill, the butcher's bill, and other
inevitable and multitudinous bills that burden the struggling workers
in the outside world. For the tax bill he has no fear. The colony
officials attend to the details of all overhead. To colonists the
amusements, sports, pastimes, dances, entertainments and all edu-
cational facilities are free.

IMPORTANT QUESTIONS ANSWERED

WHEN a member of the colony dies his shares and credits
like any other property, go to his heirs. Only Caucasians
are admitted. We have had applications from Negroes,
Hindus. Mongolians and Malays. The rejection of these applica-
tions is not due to race prejudice but because it is not deemed
expedient to mix races in these communities.

Llano is twenty miles from Palmdale, on the Southern Pacific
Railroad. All household goods and other shipments should be
consigned to the name of the owner, Palmdale, California, care
Llano Colony. Goods will be looked after by the colony freightman
until ordered moved to Llano. All shipments should be pre-
paid, other\vise they cannot be moved and storage or demurrage
may be charged. Freight transportation between the colony and
the station is by means of auto trucks. Passengers are carried
in the colony's aulo stages. In shipping household goods, it will

be well to ship only lighter goods. Cooksloves, refrigerators and
heavy articles should not be shipped from points where freight
rates are high.

Individuals may own their own automobiles and many colonists
do own them. All livestock, poultry, etc., are kepi in the depart-
ments devoted lo those industries. The aim is to keep the resi-
dence portion of the colony clean and sanitary.

SOUND FINANCING NECESSARY

PEJ^ONS cannot be admitted to residence at the colony upon
the payment of $10.00 or any other sum less than the
initial payment fee. Hundreds write and suggest they be al-
lowed to pay a small amount, or in some cases, nothing at all,
then enter the colony and work out the remainder of their shares.
If the colony permitted this there would soon be a hundred thou-
sand applications.

The money derived from these initial payments is used to pay
for land, improvements, machinery, and lo carry on the enterprise
until it is on a paying basis. It takes considerable time to bring
a large agricultural undertaking to a productive point. The colony
must proceed along sound financial lines in order lo continue its
present success. This fact must be obvious to all. The memage-
ment of the Llano del Rio Community has never been unmindful
of the fact that there is a numberless army that cannot lake
advantage of this plan of co-operation. Many letters come in
that breathe bitter and deep disappointment. No one could regret
this more than we do. It is our hope that the day will come
when successful co-operative groups can say to their stripped, rob-
bed and exploited brothers : "Vou who come vrith willing hands
and understanding of comradeship and co-operation are welcome."
The installment plan of payment whereby one pays $10.00 a
month is proving satisfactory. On this plan the absent comrade
is providing for the future while his brothers and sisters on the
land are bearing the brunt of the pioneering. Families entering
the colony begin to draw from the commissary. Some of the food,
all the clothing, much of the material they draw, costs money.
The initial membership fee goes to offset the support of families
until the colony shall be on a paying basis.

PLAN OF ORGANIZATION

Following is the plan which has pi oven successful: Each share-
holder agrees lo buy 2,000 shares of capital slock. Each pays
in cash or installments, $1,000. Each pays in labor, $1,000. Each
receives a dally wage of $4.00, from which is deducted $1.00 for
the slock he is working out. From the remainder comes his living
expenses, ^"liatever margin he may have above deduction for stock
and living expenses is credited to his individual account, payable out
of the surplus profits of the enterprise. If an installment member
falls ill, is disabled or dlsemployed, the Colony gives him every op-
portimity lo recover and resume payments. In no case will he be
crowded. If he finds it impossible lo resume payments, we will,
upon request, issue slock for the full amount he has paid. This is
transferable and may be sold to his best advantage. In this we will
endeavor to assist wherever practicable. Corporations are not
allowed by law to deal in their own stock.

HOW TO JOIN

Write today for an appiicaiion blank, fill it out and send
together with a remittance of $10 or more lo secure your member-
ship. You can ihen arrange lo pay $10 a month or more until
you can so adjust your affairs that you can make final pay-
ment and join your comrades who have already borne the first
brunt of pioneering.

The LLANO COLONIST is the Colony's weekly newspaper, telling
in detail of what is being achieved, giving an intimate peep into
the dally lives, the smaller incidents of this growing, thriving in-
stitution.

The WESTERN COMRADE is the Colony's illustrated monthly
magazine, giving more complete articles concerning the Colony,
showing photos illustrating its growth, etc. The editorials, and
many other special features, are making it one of the leading
Socialist magazines of today.

Address Communications regarding membership, general informa-
tion, etc., to the

MEMBERSHIP DEPARTMENT, LLANO DEL RIO COMPANY,
LLANO. CALIFORNIA

For subscriptions to the Publications, changes of address, etc.,
please write

THE LLANO PUBLIC ^TIONS
LLANO, CALIFORNIA

May Issue

Page
Cover Page

Llano girls going ihrough the intricacies of braiding the
Maypole.

The Gateway to Freedom - 2

Synopsis of the material contained in the booklet of the
same name.

Editorials 5

By Job Harriman.

Three Years of Achievement. 8

Frank E. Wolfe, who has been right in the thick of the
work from the start, tells what three years have done
for Llano.

Was Schmidt Guilty?..... II

First of the series containing the address before the Jury
made by Job Harriman in this famous case.

Triumph of Theory over Practice 1 3

Cameron H. King of San Francisco tells how the conven-
tion at St. Louis ignored facts and dealt with theories and
things of the past to the exclusion of practical action.

Radicals or Fetish- Worshippers ? 14

D. Bobspa, radical reviewer of books, has prepared a
remarkable article for the COMRADE, one that we heartily
commend to every thoughtful radical.

Llano Colony Adds 2750 Acres to Its Holdings 16

How We Live at Llano 16

The first tells of new property just bought. The other is
Frank E. Wolfe's comparison of living conditions at Llano
and in other places.

Nineteen Seventeen

Page

"R. p. M." 18

An interesting study in "revolutions per minute" by L. W.
Millsap, Jr.

Liberty and Play for Baby 19

Prudence Stokes Brown gives new ideas in rearing children.

The Thing in Itself (Fiction) 20

A study in character by Clara Cushman.

Carbo-Hydro Phobia 21

A serio-comic treatment of food-fear by Dr. John Dequer.

What Thinkers Think 22

Synopsis of articles in April magazines.

Reviews of Recent Readable Books 23

D. Bobspa's comments on new and old books.

A Pioneer Woman's View. 24

By Mildred G. Buxton.

For Women Only 25

Industrial Education 26

Another of the instructive series of articles by Clinton
Bancroft.

Courage 29

A poem by Mrs. C. P. Stetson of especial interest to all

co-operators.

What Readers Write Us

"I have now decided to come to Llano within two weeks and investi-
gate your co-operative enterprise. Inclosed find $1 for subscription to
the Llano Colonist and Western Comrade." M. N. Hill, Ida.

"Please find inclosed 75c. I hope to be a member and with you before
the year is out, but must have something to read in the meantime."

A. J. Daugherty, New Mexico.

"In view of the eminently sane attitude toward war set forth in the
COLONIST of April 28, I want a hundred copies for distribution. Level
heads are found now and then everywhere, but you California Socialists
seem to represent "organized sanity," especially the Llano group. At the
present rate, you will soon formulate the policy of the Socialist Party
of America, Grace B. Marians, Secretary Socialist Party, Las Animas
County, Colorado.

HERE'S A WORKER

"When I started to get subs I first secured the names of a number of
Socialists in my neighborhood. . . I visited them and left sample copies
of the Colonist and Comrade, at the same time explaining enough about
the Colony to try and interest them and to get them to read the papers.
Then I would call in a week or two, asking them if they liked the paper,
answering any questions they might ask as best I could and talk Llano
until they became interested enough to give me a subscription. Of the
25 subscriptions I secured since I began, most ail became so interested
in reading the papers and the booklet "Llano del Rio Colony a Success,"
which I always took with me, that after talking a little while about the
achievements at Llano very enthusiastically, I had little trouble in securing
subscriptions. Of course I met a few who were not interested, but these

1 tried to impress with the fact that the Colony papers should be extreme-
ly interesting to every Socialist, as they were different from any other
Socialist papers in that they were telling of the actual, working out of the
Socialist principles. I then tried to get them to subscribe for the first ten
weeks anyway. . . Every one whom I could get to read the papers
thought they were fine and wished me all manner of success, even if they
couldn't see their way clear to subscribe. I sent a few subs to friends
who were not Socialists; since then one of them told me her husband
says T'm a Socialist.' They think the papers fine." Mrs. Jacques, CaHfornia.
(Space does not permit giving more of this extremenly interesting let-
ter; later it will be given in full in either the Comrade or Colonist. Mrs.
Jacques is a systematic worker and is getting excellent results.)

* * *

BLIND, BUT A WORKER

"I will begin by telling you of my handicap. I am totally blind. I
must depend on the help of my neighbors to learn what you have writr
ten me or what is printed in your papers. By searching the town I
manage to find enough neighbors to read to me the principal part of
the Comrade and the Colonist. I earn my living by peddling garden pro-
duce. From this you will see I am not an ideal agent to represent your
literature. The Sub 1 herewith enclose I got by giving him a copy of
the Comrade and the Colonist and telling him 1 thought them the most
rational Socialist reading matter I have found. He, being a Socialist,
thought so too, and the next time I met him he only asked me if I had
paper to take his name and address. I fished out a sub-card, and here
it is," C. D. Kaufman, North Dakota.

(Comrade Kaufman has sent us in a number of subscriptions; he oper-
ates the typewriter himself and sets a splendid example of what C£m be
accomplished by grit and determination.)

Political Action

Co-operation

Direct Action

The Western Comrade

Devoted to the Cause of the Workers

Entered as second-class matter November 4th, 1916, at the post office at Llano, California, under Act of March 3, 1879.

JOB HARRIMAN

PUBLISHED EACH MONTH AT LLANO, CALIFORNIA.
Managing Editor. "^^ 7 FRANK E. WOLFE

Editor.

Subscription Rate — 75c a year; Canada $1. Single Copies lOc; clubs of 4 or more (in U. S.) 30c. Combination with LLANO COLONIST $1.
Publishers and others are invited to copy at will from the WESTERN COMRADE, but are asked to give credit. Nothing copyrighted unless so stated.
In making change of address always give your former one so that the mailing department may be certain that the right name is being changed.

VOL. V.

LLANO, CALIFORNIA, MAY, 1917.

No.

Editorials

By Job H

a r r 1 m a n

HE Emergency Socialist Party Convention, recently

I held at St. Louis, has sent forth a proclamation

which, in our opinion, is exceedingly unwise and ex-
tremely dangerous. The causes of the war are stated
correctly and with great force. The policy to be pursued by
the party during the war are stated with equal force, but are
devoid of wisdom and are pregnant with unnecessary danger
and dire consequences to our movement.

If the policy outlined by the convention is adopted by the
party, it will lay the foundation for an attack upwn our organ-
ization which v^rill create consternation in our ranks through-
out the land.

This document will support a charge of conspiracy to violate
the federal statutes. The prison doors will open and gulp in
our members by the thousands.

No good can come to the movement by such a course.

When we recommend to the workers, and pledge ourselves
to "continuous, active and public opposition to the war through
demonstrations, mass petitions and all other means within our
power," and "TO THE SUPPORT OF ALL MASS MOVE-
MENTS IN OPPOSITION TO CONSCRIPTION" if conscrip-
tion laws are passed, we act in direct violation of the United
States statute which provides that "if two or more persons
in any state or territory conspire to . . . oppose by force
the authority of the United States, or by force to prevent, hin-
der or delay the execution of any law of the United States con-
trary to the authority thereof, shall each be fined not more
than $5,000 or imprisoned not more than six years, or both."
If the party approves this position by a majority vote, the
members will either have to back up, lie down, or go to jail.
Whichever course they take will land them in a fool's paradise.

The majority of the convention acted under great excite-

ment and provocation, but it is hopied that the party will act
more wisely.

A political party that cannot raise sufficient funds to finance
its convention without borrowing money is hardly in a posi-
tion to declare war on the government of the United States.
That is precisely what the majority of the convention have pro-
posed that the party do.

We opposed this country entering the war with all our
power, but were powerless to prevent it. Now that we are in
the war, this country will follow the same course that all belli-
gerent nations have traveled. Efficiency will force munici-
pal, state and national ownership and management of indus-
tries. War vkill empty the nation's commissary. Starvation
and devastation will curse every city and hamlet. And we
who know best how to direct the movement for the national-
ization of industry to the end that suffering may be alleviated
and industries may be so organized that mutuality of interest
in industrial and commercial affairs may be substituted for the
present competitive system, are advised to put ourselves in
such a position that our services will be spurned, and that the
people, who do not understand us, will turn against us and rend
us. The working class wall not even understand our course.

This is not a labor war. Strikes may come and go, but the
war will go on to the finish. We are all citizens of this coun-
try and the rules of war will be enforced. Wisdom, sagacity
and good judgment tell us to take advantage of the opportu-
nity to forward our movement as far as possible by national-
izing our industries while the government and the people are
being forced by their economic needs in that direction.

It is for these reasons that we urge the party membership
to vote for the minority report submitted by the dissenting fifty
which gives their declaration of policy on the war.

Page six

Editorial

The Western Comrade

MINORITY REPORT BY THE
DISSENTING FIFTY

Fifty delegates to the Emergency Convention, who could not agree
with the war declaration adopted by the majsrity of the delegates,
drew up the accompanying declaration and had their signatures af-
fixed to it. This makes it possible to send this "Declaration on War
Policy" to referendum along with the declaration adopted by the con-
vention. The declaration of the convention will be published in leaflet
form in the meantime and sent out for general distribution. The
declaration on war policy of the dissenting fifty is as follows:

DECLARATION ON WAR POLICY.

CONGRESS has declared that a state of war exists between
this nation and Germany. War between the two nations
is a fact.

We opposed the entrance of this repubHc into the war, but
we failed. The political and economic organizations of the
working class were not strong enough to do more than protest.

Having failed to prevent the war by our agitation, we can
only recognize it as a fact and try to force upon the govern-
ment, through pressure of public opinion, a constructive pro-
gram.

Our aim now must be to minimize the suffering and misery
which the war will bring to our own people, to protect our
rights and liberties against reactionary encroachments, and to
promote an early peace upon a democratic basis, advantageous
to the international working class.

Furthermore, we must seize the opportunity presented by
war conditions to advance our program of democratic col-
lectivism. Every one of the other belligerent nations have
discovered through the war that capitalism is inherently inef-
ficient. To secure a maximum of efficiency, whether for mili-
tary or civil needs, it has been found necessary to abandon
the essential principle of capitalist industry. The warring
nations have had to give up the organization and operation of
industry and the primary economic functions for profit, and
to adopt the Socialist principle of production for use. Thus
the war has demonstrated the superior efficiency of collective
organization and operation of industry.

Guided by this experience, we would so reorganize our eco-
nomic system as to secure for our permanent domestic needs
the greatest possible results from the proper utilization of our
national resources.

In furtherance of these aims, we propose the following

WAR PROGRAM.

1 . We propose that the Socialist Party shall establish com-
munication with the Socialists within the enemy nations, to the
end that peace may be secured upon democratic terms at the
earliest possible moment.

2. We demand that there be no interference with freedom
of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assemblage.

3. We demand that dealings between the government and
the workers in all of the industries and services taken over and
operated by the government shall be conducted through their
organizations, with due regard for the right of organization of
those not yet organized.

4. We demand that conscription, if it come at all, shall be-
gin with wealth. All annual incomes in excess of $5,000
should be taken by the government and used to pay the cur-

rent expenses of the war. If it is just to conscript a human
being, it is just to conscript wealth. Money is not as sacred
as human life.

5. We demand that there shall be no conscription of men
until the American people shall have been given the right to
vote upon it. Under the British Empire the people of Aus-
tralia were permitted to decide by ballot whether they should
be conscripted. We demand for the American people the same
right.

6. We demand that the government seize and operate for
the benefit of the whole people the great industries concerned
with production, transportation, storage and marketing of the
food and other necessities of the people.

7. We demand that the government seize all suitable vacant
land, and have the same cultivated for the purpose of furnish-
ing food supplies for the national use.

8. We demand that the government take over and operate
all land and water transport facilities; all water powers and
irrigation plants; mines, forests and oil fields; and all indus-
trial monopolies; and that this be done at once, before the
nation shall suffer calamity from the failure of their capitalist
direction and management under war pressure.

MAJORITY REPORT OF THE
ST. LOUIS CONVENTION

THE SOCIALIST Party of the United States in the present grave crisis,
solemnly reaffirms its allegiance to the principle of internationalism
and working class solidarity the world over, and proclaims its un-
alterable opposition to the war just declared by the government of the
United States.

Modern wars as a rule have been caused by the commercial and financial
rivalry and intrigues of the capitalist interests in the different ocuntries.
Whether they have been frankly waged as wars of aggression or have
been hypocritically represented as wars of "defense," they have always
been made by the classes and fought by the masses. Wars bring wealth
and power to the ruling classes, and suffering, death, and demoralization
to the workers.

They breed a sinister spirit of passion, unreason, race hatred and false
patriotism. They obscure the struggles of the workers for life, liberty
and social justice. They tend to sever the vital bonds of solidarity be-
tween them and their brothers in other countries, to destroy their organiza-
tion and to curtail their civic and political rights and liberties.

Pledge All To Labor

Tne Sociahst Parly of the United Stales is unalterably opposed to the
system of exploitation and class rule which is upheld and strengthened
by military power and sham national patriotism. We, therefore, call upon
the workers of all countries to refuse support to their governments in
their wars. The wars of ihe contending national groups of capitalists are
not the concern of the workers. The only struggle which would justify
the workers in taking up arms is the great struggle of the working class
of the world to free itself from economic exploitation and political op-
pression, and we particularly warn the workers against the snare and
delusion of so-called defensive warfare. As against the false doctrine of
national patriotism we uphold the ideal of international working class
solidarity. In support of capitalism, we will not willingly give a single
life or a single dollar; In support of the struggle of the workers for
freedom we pledge our all.

Why This Orgy of Death?

The mad orgy of death and destruction which is now convulsing un-
fortunate Europe was caused by the conflict of capitalist interests in the
European countries.

In each of these countries, the workers were oppressed and exploited.
They produced enormous wealth, but the bulk of it was witheld from them
by the owners of the industries. The workers were thus deprived of
the means to repurchase the wealth, which they themselves had created.

The capitalist class of each country was forced to look for foreign
markets to dispose of the accumulated "surplus" wealth. The huge profits
made by the capitalists could no longer be profitably reinvested in their

The Western Comrade

Editorial

own counlries, hence, they were driven to look for foreign fields of in-
vestment. The geographical boundaries of each modem capitalist country
thus became too narrow for the industrial and commercial operations of
its capitalist class.

The efforts of the capitalists of all leading nations were therefore cen-
tered upon the domination of the world markets. Imperialism became
the dominant note in the politics of Europe. The acquisition of colonial
possessions and the extension of spheres of commercial and political in-
fluence became the object of diplomatic intrigues and the cause of con-
stant clashes between nations.

The acute competition between the capitalist powers of the earth, their
jealousies and distrusts of one another and the fear of the rising power
of the working class forced each of them to arm to the teeth. This led
to the mad rivalry of armament, which, years before the outbreak of the
present war, had turned the leading countries of Europe into armed camps
with standing armies of many millions, drilled and equipped for war in
times of "peace."

Capitalism, imperialism and militarism had thus laid the foundation of
an inevitable general conflict in Europe. The ghastly war in Europe was
not caused by an accidental event, nor by the policy or institutions of
any single nation. It was the logical outcome of the competitive capital-
ist system.

The six million men of all countries and races who have been ruth-
lessly slain in the first thirty months of this war, the millions of others
who have been crippled and maimed, the vast treasures of wealth that
have been destroyed, the untold misery and sufferings of Europe, have
not been sacrifices exacted in a struggle for principles or ideals, but wanton
offerings upon the altar of private profit.

The forces of capitalism which led to the war in Europe are even more
hideously transparent in the war recently provoked by the ruling class of
this country.

When Belgium was invaded, the government enjoined upon the people
of this country the duty of remaining neutral, thus clearly demonstrating
that the "dictates of humanity," and the fate of small nations and of
democratic institutions were matters that did not concern it. But when
our enormous war traffic was seriously threatened, our government calls
upon us to rally to the "defense of democracy and civihzation."

Our entrance into the European war was instigated by the predatory
capitalists in the United States who boast of the enormous profit of seven
billion dollars from the manufacture and sale of munitions and war supplies
and from the exportation of American food stuffs and other necessaries.
They are also deeply interested in the continuance of war and the success
of the allied arms through their huge loans to the governments of the allied
powers and through other commercial lies. It is the same interests which
strive for imperialistic domination of the Western Hemisphere.

The war of the United States against Germany cannot be justified even
on the plea that it is a war in defense of American rights or American
"honor." Ruthless as the unrestricted submarine war policy of the Ger-
man government was and is, it is not an invasion of the rights of the
American people as such, but only an interference with the opportunity
of certain groups of American capitalists to coin cold profits, out of the
blood and sufferings of our fellow men m the warring counlries of Europe.

It is not a war against the military regime of the Central Powers.
Militarism can never be abolished by militarism.

It is not a war to advance the cause of democracy in Europe. Democ-
racy can never be imposed upon any country by a foreign power by
force of arms.

It is cant and hypocrisy to say that the war is not directed against the
German people, but against the Imperial Government of Germany. If we
send an armed force to the battle fields of Europe, its cannon will mow
down the masses of the German people and not the Imperial German
Government.

Our entrance into the European conflict at this time will serve only
to multiply the horrors of the war, to increase the toll of death and
destruction and to prolong the fiendish slaughter. It will bring death,
suffering and destitution to the people of the United Slates, and particularly
to the working class. It will give the powers of reaction in this coun-
try the pretext for an attempt to throttle our rights and to crush our
democratic institutions, and to fasten upon this country a permanent
militarism.

The working class of the United States has no quarrel with the work-
ing class of Germany or of any other country. The people of the United
States have no quarrel with the people of Germany or of any other
country. The American people did not want and do not want this war.
They have pot been consulted about the war and have no part in declar-
ing war. They have been plunged into this war by the trickery and
treachery of the rulmg class of the country through its representatives
in the National Administration and National Congress, its demagogic

agitators, its subsidized press, and other servile instruments of public
expression.

We brand the declaration of war by our government as a crime against
the people of the United States and against the nations of the world.

In all modern history there has been no war more unjustifiable than
the war in which we are about to engage.

No greater dishonor has ever been forced upon a people than that which
the capitalist class is forcing upon this nation against its will.

Our Course of Action

In harmony with these principles, the Socialist Party emphatically re-
jects the proposal that in time of war the working class should suspend
their struggle for better conditions. On the contrary, the acute situation
created by war calls for an even more vigorous prosecution of the class
struggle, and we recommend to the workers and pledge ourselves to the
following course of action :

1. Continuous, active, and public opposition to the war, through demon-
strations, mass petitions, and all other means within our power.

2. Unyielding opposition to all proposed legislations for military or
industrial conscription. Should such conscription be forced upon the
people, we pledge ourselves to continuous efforts for the repeal of such
laws and to the support of all mass movements in opposition to con-
scription. We pledge ourselves to fight with all our strength against
any attempt to raise money for the payment of war expenses by taxing
the necessaries of life or issuing bonds, which will put the burden upon
future generations. We demand that the capitalist class, which is re-
sponsible for the war, pay its cost. Let those who kindle the fire fur-
nish the fuel.

3. Vigorous resistance to all reactionary measures, such as censorship
of press and mails, restriction of the rights of free speech, assemblage,
and organization, or compulsory arbitration and limitation of the right
of strike.

4. Consistent propaganda against military training and militaristic teach-
ing in the public schools.

5. Extension of the campaign of education among the workers to or-
ganize them into strong, class-conscious, and closely unified political and
industrial organizations, to enable them by concerted and harmonious
mass action to shorten this war and to establish lasting peace.

6. Wide-spread educational propaganda to enlighten the masses as to
the true relation between capitalism and war, and to rouse and or-
ganize them for action, not only against present war evils, but for the
prevention of future wars and for the destruction of the causes of war.

7. To protect the masses of the American people from the pressing
danger of starvation which the war in Europe has brought upon them,
and which the entry of the United States has already accentuated, we
demand :

(a) The restriction of food exports so long as the present shortage
continues, the fixing of maximum prices, and whatever measures may
be necessary to prevent the food speculators from holding back the
supplies now in their hands ;

(b) The socialization and democratic management of the great indus-
tries concerned with the production, transportation, storage, and the
marketing of food and other necessities of life;

(c) The socialization and democratic management of all land and other
natural resources which is now held out of use for monopolistic or specu-
lative profit.

These measures are presented as means of protecting the workers
against the evil results of the present war. The danger of recurrence of
war will exist as long as the capitalist system of industry remains in
existence. The end of wars will come with the establishment of socialized
industry and industrial democracy the world over. The Socialist Party
calls upon all the workers to join it in a new struggle to reach this goal,
,-ir.H thi's bring into the world a new society in which peace, fraternity,
'-'nd hu-nan brotherhood will be the dominant ideals.

Recommendations

1. We recommend that the convention instruct our elected representatives
in Congress, in the Slate Legislatures, and in local bodies, lo vote against
all proposed appropriations or loans for military, naval, and other war
purposes.

2. We recommend that this convention instruct the National Executive
Committee to extend and improve the propaganda among women, because
they as housewives and as mothers are now particularly ready to accept
our message.

3. We recommend that the convention instruct the National Executive
Committee to initiate an organized movement of Socialists, organized
workers, and other anti-war forces for concerted action along the lines
of this program.

Page eight

About Llano

The Western Coi

Three Years of Achievement

By Frank E. Wolfe

HREE years of history of the Llano del Rio com-

Tmunity, even if written as a sketch briefly touching
upon the events that were of the most importance

at the hour, would require more space than could be

found inside this magazine. Achievements have been many
and continuous. They can be touched upon but briefly here.

Starting in May, 1914, with a plan that was only defined
in the one idea — that of forming an initial group for the pur-
pose of solving the problem of co-operative production of
the necessities of life — the founders worked their way along
and as the scheme unfolded the plans took more concrete
form. True, the man who first thought of the community
had plans of large dimensions. He had not nor could he have
definite ideas as to details and development. To him and
to many others the vision of the future was strong and many
were the dreams that were dreamed. At first it was all a
dream — land, water, labor, a community, houses, live stock,
machinery and all. Then slowly the dream became a reality.

The first land was secured largely on faith. A few im-
proved ranches came in on options that were held with small
payments and promises based on hope of the future. Then
that hope became strengthened by the response of comrades
and options became purchases and a stronger grip was secured
on the deeded land. Then land began to come in through
trades and other channels. More and more land was added
until the red spots on the Colony map widened, and as deeds
were secured these spots took on a deeper hue. With the
purchase of the Tilghman ranch was removed the serious ob-
stacle of a contender for our water rights. We secured a
splendid piece of property, with producing alfalfa fields and
more important, the tunnel and the undisputed right to the
dam site. Then came other land which was obtained by trades
and transfers, until the Colony was secure with land sufficient
to support several thousand persons. Water development and
conservation through improvement of ditches and cobbled
laterals, clearing and improving the tunnel and by other means
extending the supply, was a contemporaneous transformation
from dream to reality. These two vitally essential features
of the enterprise have always been recognized as fundamental.

How much land has the Colony?

This question is frequently asked. Many times it comes
from persons who have no conception of an acre of land and
could not visualize 100 acres or give any adeq.uate idea of
what an immense tract of land 1 ,000 acres is. To give them
a foundation, let us say that a section of land comprises
640 acres. This is a square mile. Get a line on that, then
figure that the Colony now has under control about 9,000
acres and that it can secure more as rapidly as we want it,
or can put it under cultivation. Of this land there are about
3,000 acres of titled land under deeds. The remainder is un-
der tax titles and contracts. All is safe from interference.
Land for purposes of extension is available at a reasonable
rate. We have under cultivation inside the Colony about
1 ,400 acres. Besides this, we have under lease for the year's
crops a number of ranches. We have labor contracts where-
by we exchange service for fruit and other crops so that our
year's product will not be limited by what land we have
under cultivation. We are clearing land as rapidly as prac-
ticable, but this work can go forward only as rapidly as we
can divert teams and men from the necessary work of plant-
ing, cultivation and harvesting. There is always need for more

men and more teams and it requires much clever manipulation
on the part of the assistant superintendent, the corral manager,
the head farmer, and others, to keep the teams on the most
needed work.

To the farmers the land is of the most paramount impor-
tance. The gardener has an argument which no one can meet.
The cannery foreman can floor anyone who attempts to argue
about the relative value of his department. "Say, don't you
fellows want to eat next winter?" is an argument that makes
the laundry foreman, the soapmaker, and even that important
individual, the tanner, pause in any flight of oratory. The
cannery mian wins. So does the gardener, the berry man, the
hog raiser, or anyone in the food production or conservation
departm,ent. But it all goes back to the land as the source
of life at Llano, as in every other part of the globe.

Llano will always have enough land. Negotiations are con-
tinually pending for more land and deals go through nearly
every week on the basis of trades. Recently 1 ,300 acres came
in in one week. This added three ranches to our cattle range
and gave us a 100-inch well and a pump of that capacity.

We have every hope of securing two producing ranches
that lie back in the foothills between the Colony lands and
the mountains. These will also come in under trades and
they will more that meet the Colony's growing demand for
food and feed.

Equal in importance with the possession of land is the
ownership and development of water.

It is unsafe for a layman to write about the conservation
and development of water. For this reason the follov^ang
facts and statements are taken from an article prepared by
our engineer. They may be relied upon as being not only
conservative but always inside figures and guarded statements.

Llano's water supply comes from four sources, namely,
the surface flow of Big Rock Creek, storage, reservoir, and
underground flows.

First: The natural surface flow of the Big Rock Creek, of
which we are using a part at present. This water will easily
irrigate 5,000 acres if properly handled. At the present time
there are about 3,000 miners' inches of surface flow, later in
the summer the flow decreases to about 500 inches.

Second: We have a reservoir and dam site. A dam 200
feet high will have a storage capacity of from 40,000 to
50,000 acre feet of storage water. Government reports show
flood water enough from this watershed to be sufficient to
fill this huge reservoir. However, the dam as planned at
present will have a capacity of 5,600 acre feet. This amount
of water is sufficient to irrigate at least 5,000 acres more of
this land.

Third: The underground flow, of which we can only es-
timate at present. The flow from the old tunnel constructed
some twenty-five years ago is 125 miners' inches. This flow
has been increased forty miners' inches by cleaning out the
tunnel to a distance of about 100 feet from where it enters
the deep wash of Big Rock. This wash is composed of loose
gravel indicating many hundreds of miners' inches of water;
perhaps it may run into thousands of inches. We are still
pushing the work ahead on the tunnel and expect to tap this
wash forty feet below the surface of the creek bed as stated.
One hundred and twenty miners' inches forces its way through
gravel and mud a distance of probably one hundred feet
and that alone tells us a vast quantity of water awaits us.

The Western Comrade

About Llano

rage nine

Those who contemplate joining us may rest assured as to
the land and water problems. They await only development.
The possibilities are almost unlimited. The conservation of
water is reasonable, being under $25.00 per acre.

To the North, thirteen miles beyond the Lovejoy Buttes,
the Colony owns a ranch where our range stock headquarters
are now located. This lower part of the valley is a pumping
proposition. On this ranch we have a well that furnishes
100 miners' inches, pumped with a fifty horse power gasoline
engine.

"It is safe to say that the sources of water we have, can
and will be developed to irrigate 50,000 acres of land," says
this engineer. "Come and see for yourself — and judge for
yourself. The United States Government has set aside 60,000
acres in this irrigation district. That means they say 60,000
can be irrigated from these water sources. We say 50,000
to be well under the United States government estimate."

Looking back over three years of endeavor in this valley,
one is struck by the horizontal rise in achievement. If the
co-operators had restricted themselves to one little hne of de-
velopment, a much greater showing might have been made
in that particular department. This was not possible. This
was a matter of clearing land, plowing, leveling, fencing,
planting, attending crops, and harvesting. But while this was
going on there were the other departments, each of great
importance, coming forward with demands for labor, teams,
machinery and appropriations. Horticultural activities could
not be curtailed. Live stock had to be given attention. Then
the numerous industries demanded a share in the resources
necessary to development and expansion. The whole vast
enterprise must come along with as even a front as possible
— the rise horizontal.

The first live stock acquisition included about a dozen hogs.
They were of indifferent type, with no breed or character.
Since that tirhe hundreds of hogs have passed the department.
During the past year over $5,000 worth of pork has been
distributed through the commissary and there are 200 hogs
now in the department. This number will be reduced within
a few days and then the increase will start upward toward the
days of packing meat next fall. Great care will be taken in
the meat producing and live stock department. No boarders
will be permitted to winter. Each animal will pay its way —
go to the range or go into smoked pork or corned beef.

Slowly it seems, but steadily, the herd of hogs has been
changed in character from "scrubs" to pure bred stock. Blue
ribbon Berkshires and Duroc-Jerseys are the sires of the rising
generation of porkers. There are twenty-two registered brood
sows of high pedigree among the Duroc-Jerseys and more are
to be added at once. We have had exceptionally good fortune
in having this department in the hands of a man of great
ability and good business sense.

The Colony's dairy herd was started with 83 head brought
from the Imperial Valley in January, 1915. Up to that time
the few pioneers here had little milk and not much butter.
The herd is gradually being merged over from Jerseys to
Holsteins, but these two strains will long run equally strong.

There are about 200 cattle in the Colony's herd on the
range. Here again good fortune attended the community in
that it had a cattle man of experience to take charge. Not
only is he a capital herder, but as a real, old-time, ideal
cowboy he adds greatly to the picturesqueness of the scene.
He is affable and a source of inspiration to the youth — a hero
to the small boy of the Colony.

The range is excellent. The ranches with water in that part

of the valley to the north are coming into the possession of
the Colony. There the bunch-grass, knee high and plentiful,
furnishes all-the-year-round grazing for our stock. We want
to run this herd up to several thousand head and that is a part
of our plans. The dream here takes form as we go forward.
We must have this herd because we shall need the meat and
the hides.

The need of the hides will become apparent when we say
we have a tannery and a shoe factory, a harness shop and
a great need of leather for varied purposes.

The leather thus far tanned is of excellent quality. The
shoe factory will turn out good shoes both for dress and for
work purposes. Both these departments are in the hands of
masters of their crafts.

Starting in three years ago without detailed plans, the pro-
cess of evolution has carried us forward until we have sixty-six
departments operating under managers and division managers.

These departments report to assistant superintendeuts who
have charge of the two general branches of the enterprise —
the agricultural and the mechanical.

Under the former comes all things that pertain to the gen-
eral business of farming on a large scale. Under the latter
the industrial side of the undertaking.

Without regard to the division, the following is a list of
the subdivisions where workers report to the time keeper:
Administration, agriculture, agricultural implements and tools,
alfalfa, architect and survey, art studio, bakery, barber shop,
bees, building, cabinet shop and planing mill, cannery, cleaning
and pressing suits; clearing, fencing and grading; creamery,
dairy, fish hatchery, general garden, general store (commis-
sary), grain (corn, barley, rye and wheat), hay and grain,
hogs, horses and teaming, horticulture, Llano hotel, Tilghman
hotel. Mescal hotel. Lime kiln hotel. Logging camp hotel. Fish
hatchery hotel, irrigation, irrigation construction and develop-
ment, irrigation district work, jeweler, laundry, log road and
logging, lime kiln, library, mechanical store, machine shop,
medical. Mescal ranch, Montessori school, membership, over-
alls and shirts, poultry, printing, publishing, post office, rabbits,
range herd, rug shop, saw mill, sanitation, shoe shop. Sierra
Madre colony, social service, soap factory, stage line, tannery,
Hart-Parr tractor. Best caterpillar tractor, large steam tractor,
small steam tractor, transportation, tinshop, plumbing and
stoves, wood department.

There is a growing tendency toward more and more inde-
pendence in the management of departments. As men in
charge of these departments demonstrate their ability they are
given greater power and their advice is always carefully con-
sidered in business transactions in connection with their work.

The planting of gardens and crops this year has been
planned, and in part carried out, with a view to producing
especially for the needs of the colonists should there be a
continued rise in the cost of living and a greater scarcity of
food supply.

There are four acres in strawberries, which will be pro-
ducing berries by May 5. Last year the Colony had all the
sunberries it could use. In fact, considerable of this delicious
fruit went to waste. This will not be allowed to occur again.

Thirty acres are being planted to beans. This is outside
the "kitchen garden." Eight acres are also prepared for
peanuts.

There are twenty acres planted to potatoes. The Baldwin
fourteen acres in potatoes are in fine condition and the first
crop will be taken in the early part of June, when a second
crop will be planted. The seven acres on the Young place

page ten

Atiout Llano

The Western Comrade

Llano's first dairy.
The lady shown
here has been
joined by many of
her kind.

are making splendid progress. Plans are made to greatly
extend potato planting.

Forty acres are planted to sugar cane, and this may be ex-
tended. A great variety of vegetables will be produced.

Steadily the Colony pushes forward in all directions. The
rounding out of the third year of its existence shows remark-
able progress and development. Extension of land holdings
goes on from month to month and the policy of taking over
land free and clear of debt is as closely followed as practicable.

The Colony acquires machinery in much the same manner
by trades and issues of stock. This enables us to increase
the assets without incurring obligation.

During the first weeks of May, according to predictions
that are virtually promises, the lumber department will be
bringing logs down from the timber land, and the sawmill
will start cutting lumber for the Colony.

Plans of the building department contemplate the com-
pletion of the new dormitory, hospital, cannery, printshop,
tannery, office extension, apiary department, and new cow
camp. A new public kitchen and dining room will follow.

The dormitory will be 130 by 36 feet and will contain
twenty-five rooms. It should be completed by the latter part
of May.

The stone is on the spot where the hospital is to be erected.
This is a pleasant location in the almond grove, where it is
quiet and the surroundings are ideal.

There is great need for new housing for the printery. This
important department is operated under great difficulties owing
to crowded conditions where linotype, folder, cutter, presses,
and other machinery are crowded into extremely cramped
quarters. Highly skilled and efficient workers have to resort
to many makeshifts to enable them to keep the publications

The laundry is in a similar situation and the industry is
scattered. This will be remedied by the erection of a separate
building where all branches, including the soap making plant,
will be housed.

The cannery will take possession of the entire building, of
which it now occupies but one-fourth. In addition to this,
storage room will be provided.

It is expected that by midsummer the woodworking depart-
ment will have an abundance of material on hand and the
Colony spared any further burden in the matter.

The Colony has in its own trout hatchery one of the most
valuable branches of the entire enterprise. The manager of
this department is building solidly. Six concrete tanks have
just been completed for the young trout. This is the sub-
stantial permanent construction which will characterize the
development of this interesting division. Two of the pools
are completed, although pool No. 2 awaits lining. Several
hundred of the breeding trout have been placed in smaller
tanks pending improvement of pool No. I .

This season's hatch of rainbow trout is several weeks out
of the egg, and the little fellows are strong and vigorous.
When they are large enough to take from the hatching trough
they will be put into tanks constructed for that purpose.

Several thousand will go into each tank and there they will
remain through their fingerling days and up to the day of
their removal to the larger lakes. It is planned to build
twelve or more lakes in terraces down the beautiful valley
when this industry can be developed to a point of several
hundred thousand trout.

These are the rainbow trout (salmon irridius) and are not
only the most beautiful and gamey but the best pan fish native
to Western waters. It is planned to put in a fall spawning
of Eastern brook trout. This will depend on the completion
of the new hatchery building. The material for this building
is on the spot and only awaits the stone masons. Though
much necessary and just as important construction is waiting
all over the ranch it is confidently expected that the pools for
the hatchery vvdll be completed in time to allow for the fall
activities at the hatchery.

This is but a portion of the history of Llano recited es-
pecially for this Anniversary Number. As much more could
be written and then scarcely touch the subject. Llano's
history is already a complex fabric, and it is known in its en-
tirety to no man. But its development is now the thing of
prime importance and the foregoing sketch should prove con-
vincingly that Llano has progressed more rapidly and sub-
stantially than even the most optimistic had a right to hope
or expect.

In addition to the Llano dairy herd, many more will be brought in from the ranges within a short time.

The Western Comrade

Page

Was Schmidt Guilty?

["Was Schmidt Guihy?" is th* name the WESTERN COMRADE
has given to the address made by Comrade Job Harriman before the
jury at the conclusion of the trial of Matt Schmidt on the charge of
dynamiting the Times Building. Schmidt has just been sent to the
penitentiary after having been in the Los Angeles jail for about two
years, to serve a life sentence. The COMRADE will run one instal-
ment each month of this extraordinary document. It is the inten-
tion to eventually publish it in book form.]

ENTLEMEN: You have been told by the assistant

G prosecuting attorney that he prosecuted this case be-
cause he was sincere in the behef that the defendant

is guilty and because it was his duty as a citizen to

the state, and his divine duty to God! We shall see later how
sincere he is as a citizen and with what divine conscience he
urges his cause.

As for myself, I want to meet you as man meets man in
a common effort to solve a serious problem. We are only men
and nothing more. We are confronted with a solemn obliga-
tion; let us face it in a plain, straightforward and humble
manner. Let us make no profession of our divine duties or
inspirations, and we shall come far nearer the truth than if
we are blinded with imaginary duties and influences. Our
minds must remain open and receptive to the last, and you
must go into the jury room without previously making up your
minds on the issues at the bar.

The real issue involved in this case is the struggle between
the United States Steel Trust and the International Bridge
and Structural Iron Workers. The defendant, Schmidt, is only
an incident in the fight. The prosecution had as well face
this fact without further equivocation. Their effort to con-
ceal the struggle for dollars by the Steel Trust and the Erect-
ors' Association, and the struggle for their lives by the union
men, is futile and without avail. Nor yet is this prosecution
conducted for the purpose of convicting certain men of a
certain crime, but rather for the purpose of destroying the
labor organizations, the only power that stands between the
Erectors' Association and the gratification of their greed.

For many weeks you have been held here in this jury box
and compelled to listen to the reading of hundreds of letters,
scores of magazine articles, and untold numbers of signatures
in hotel registers in various cities, all to the end that they
might convince you of a nation-wide conspiracy to destroy
property and that they might cast the odium of it upon the
American labor movement. They have labored in vain for
many weeks to make it appear that the lockout in Los Angeles
during the year of 1910 was directly connected with the war
between the Steel Trust and the International Bridge and
Structural Iron Workers.

Without an understanding of the struggle between these
two powers you will be confused by the testimony and you
cannot intelligently proceed to a verdict in this case.

For years prior to 1906 the Structural Iron Workers had
been striving to better their condition. Ten hours a day was
the sentence pronounced upon them. The dangers of this
most dangerous occupation became even more perilous toward
the end of the long hours, when the body and nerve weakened
under the heavy burden and on the dizzy heights. One by
one they lost their balance and plunged headlong into the
grave below. The death roll became appalling. The guardian
angel was never present. They fell from cathedrals and banks,
from blocks and towers alike, whether they were building
for God or for Mammon. The only voices they heard was

the demand for long hours, low wages, hard work, and this
came from the iron jaws of the Steel Trust. Their homes were
poorly furnished, their children indifferently educated, their
wives were clothed in calico and cheapest cotton, they went
to their work shivering and insufficiently clad. Why should
they not struggle to better their condition? Are we not all in
the same struggle? Are you not struggling, at your trades, on
your ranches and in your business callings, to better your
condition? And shall these men be forbidden the common
heritage? Shall they sink, sink, sink, into a state unfit for
a slave?

And tell me for what was the Steel Trust struggling? Was
it for food and raiment with which to feed their loved ones
at home? Far from it. Their tables were laden with silver,
filled with milk and honey and sweetmeats; their homes were
palaces adorned with rugs, and ebony and gold tapestry,
while their families were robed in silks and satins and be-
decked with diamonds, and the doors of the greatest colleges
of the land were open to their children.

No! No! The owners of the Steel Trust were not struggling
to earn comforts for their families, but they were struggling
for larger profits, more power, with which to enforce low wages
and long hours and to gorge their greed.

Again I ask, why should not these iron workers fight for
food and raiment, fight for their wives, their little ones, and
their homes?

No one knows or ever will know the suffering and privation
these men endured during the long years of this terrible labor
war. On the one hand stood the billion-dollar Steel Trust.
On the other stood thousands of men bound together by their
mutual interests, their necessities and their affections. The
means of warfare was the lockout and the boycott employed
by the trust. And the strike was employed by the men.

A number of large erection and construction companies
dependent upon and working with the Steel Trust were og-
ganized and operating in all the large cities of the land. So
long as these companies worked independently the efforts of
the iron workers were crowned with some degree of success.
The measure of success with which they met inspired in them
a confidence in their power and a hope of better days and
rallied them all into a solid phalanx, determined to reduce
their working hours and to increase their wages. They were
the attacking force. They must force their wages up or for-
ever live like slaves. Every increase of wages increased their
power. Every hour cut off increased their hope. And every
increase of power and hope added numbers to their ranks to
help them fight their winning battle.

As the years rolled by the bitter war went on, with work-
ing hours decreasing and wages increasing, until the year 1906.
In the early part of that year the United States Steel Trust,
the great American Octopus, stretched out its terrible arms
and gatheied together all the steel erection and construction
companies in ihe United States and forced upon them a penalty
of "no submission, no steel," to refuse to deal directly or
indirectly with the International Bridge and Iron Workers'
Union. You will remember that Mr. R. D. Jones from Utah,
witness ior the state, testified in effect that his company was
forced to run an open shop — that the Steel Trust would not
sell them steel unless that condition was strictly complied with.

By means of the resolution adopted in 1906 these companies
were formed into an association. Among other things the

Page twelve

The Western Cor

resolution provided that no member of the association should
recognize or deal with any union; that all losses sustained by
reason of such refusal on the part of the company would be
borne by the association.

This policy, if carried out, meant the ruin of the Iron
Workers' Union. What chance would a poor, helpless man
have without the support of an organization when confronted
with such a power? In such a case there can be no agree-
ment. The man can only submit; he does not consent. The
minds do not meet. There is not a single element of an agree-
ment present in such a transaction. There is rebellion in his
mind, ever present, when he submits and goes to work. Why
does he not quit? Why does not the cry for bread of his
hungry children cease ringing in his ear? Necessity knows
no law. It drives him on into a dark and helpless future.

it may be that, during some time in your lives, some of
you men have been members of unions. If so, you fully realize
that the union is the only power that prevents wages from
being reduced to the point upon which men can barely sub-
sist — that those who do not belong to the union, as well as
the union men, reap the benefit of the higher rate established
by the efforts of the organizations.

Again I say that if the policy of the open shop were univer-
sally adopted the union, with all the advantages it has delivered
to the worker, would pass away. Every applicant for work
would receive the same answer: "We are paying two dollars
to two twenty-five for a ten-hour work day ; no extra for over-
time. Plenty of takers! Want the job?" The helpless man
would bow his neck to the yoke and go to work. Overtime
was eagerly sought, not because these workers strove to lay
up money, but because ten hours at two dollars or two twenty-
five is not sufficient to provide the family with the necessities
of life. Long hours and low pay were, therefore, the rule
when the struggle of the iron workers began in the East, as
well as in the city of Los Angeles, in the year of 1910 before
the lockout occurred.

WOOLWINE — That is not according to the evidence.

HARRIMAN — Oh. yes, it is. Turn to Mr. Grow's evidence,
Mr. McKenzie, and read it to him.

McKENZIE — (Reading from manuscript) "The wage for
structural work here was TlYi cents an hour and no extra
pay for overtime."

HARRIMAN — Are you satisfied, Mr. Woolwine?

WOOLWINE — Beg your pardon for interrupting.

HARRIMAN — Your pardon is granted and your memory
resuscitated.

Ten hours' work for two dollars and twenty-five cents.
Would you, though already exhausted, have worked overtime
if the welfare of your family had been at stake? Knowing
the dangers to life and limb at great heights, especially when
the body and nerves are already strained with overwork, would
you have added hours to cover the deficits at home? And do
I hear you say no? Then what would you have done? Quit
the job? Ah! listen! The cry of little children comes from
your home. What would you do? You would do the only
thing left to do — you would join with your fellows and strike
for better wages and shorter hours.

The issue of wages and hours is the point at which the
line of every great industrial battle is drawn. The hosts seek-
ing profits are arrayed on the one side of the wages and hours
line, and the hosts of breadwinners on the other. In this great
industrial battle in the East, the Steel Trust, together with the
Erectors' Association, was struggling to force the wages down
and the hours up, while the union men were endeavoring to
force the hours down and the wages up. This is the line of

battle and the prosecution may as well face the fact. Equivo-
cation will not avail them. This prosecution is not conducted,
as they would lead you to believe, for the purpose of con-
victing a few so-called conspirators. This prosecution is con-
ducted for the purpose of undermining the labor movement
of America.

Two dollars and a quarter a day and nothing extra for
overtime, is the demand of the Steel Trust! What answer
could the individual make to this demand? It is the demand
of the powerful master to the slave. If he refuses to work
the master lays on the lash of hunger and turns the wolves
loose to howl at his door.

You men of the jury must admit that the labor unions are
the only power that stands between the weak and helpless
individual and the billion-dollar Steel Trust, together with the
powerful Erectors' Association. Disband the labor organiza-
tions or conduct the open shop, which is the equivalent, and
you open the way for greed to afflict this country with a
terrible disaster — a disaster so far-reaching and so searching
that it ferrets out and grips every man who lives by the
sweat of his brow — a disaster that means poverty, and ignor-
ance, and corruption, and despair.

Yet the Steel Trust commanded the steel erecting and con-
structing companies of the United States to pass and enforce
with all their power a resolution — that is, to enter into and
force a mutual agreement — that they, or any one of them,
would not deal, directly or indirectly, with the labor union;
that they would only hire men as they came; that, in so far
as they were concerned, there should be no labor union; and
that there should be no organized power to fight to better
working conditions. Only the individual man, standing alone,
shall have the privilege of selling himself at whatever price
those who wish to buy shall place upon him. His poverty
and degradation shall be measured by the greed of the power-
ful, and the luxuries of the powerful shall be limited only by
their temptations.

That this is the ripe fruit of an open-shop system there
can be no doubt.

That the destruction of the labor unions and the establish-
ment of the open shop is the purpose of this prosecution,
and not the prosecution of a few so-called conspirators, there
can be no question. Time and time again it was testified
upon this stand by members of the Erectors' Association that
they would not deal with labor organizations; that they all
ran an open shop; that they would not even negotiate nor
confer with labor organizations; that they had not dealt with
labor organizations since 1906; and that since the year 1906
thev only hired and dealt with laborers individually.

Notwithstanding the long and bitter struggle previous to this
strike, there was never any violence commited until after this
soulless resolution was passed in 1906 — no violence until the
greedy corporations endeavored to deal the death blow to
the International Bridtre and Structural Iron Workers.

True, there was a little testimony concerning one or two
instances, but that testimony was wholly unworthy of belief or
consideration. It flowed from the perjured lips of felons like
the poisonous fumes of hell.

There were four of these felons employed or in some way
bribed or induced by the state to testify for the prosecution.
There was Dugan of Indianapolis, Davis of Massachusetts,
Clark of Cincinnati, and McManigal. These principal wit-
nesses for the state were all guilty of capital crimes, each
endeavoring to perjure this defendant's life away for his
own liberty.

(To be continued next month)

The Western Comrade

Page thirteen

Triumph of Theory Over Practice ?l

Cameron H. King

HE Emergency National Convention was held under

T extraordinary circumstances and worked under an
especial tension. It is therefore partly to be excused

for its failures. But at the same time it exhibited the

faults of the Socialist Party organization behind it. Of ora-
torical talent there was plenty. Of theoretical discrimination
there was a surfeit. Of political insight, of constructive capa-
city, there was a lamentable deficiency.

Since the beginning of the European war there has raged
among Socialist Party theoreticians a terrible controversy as
to the relative importance of the economic, political, diplomat-
ic and dynastic causes of the war. These theorists, numbering
in their ranks our most prominent comrades, came to the con-
vention imbued with the idea that its most important business
was to decide by majority vote which group was scentifically
correct. So, immediately upon arriving in St. Louis, they
dug trenches and began assailing each other with conversa-
tional gas attacks and oratorical curtain fire. As an inevitable
result the delegates' attention was practically confined to the
discussion of such questions as "Have the workers a country?
and "Shall we oppose all wars, offensive and defensive, now
and forever, world without end. Amen?" Much learning and
acuteness, also some ignorance and stupidity, were displayed
in the debate on these burning theoretical questions. But it
submerged almost completely the practical political situation,
the emergency that still confronts us, which is, "Here is war!
What are you going to do about it?"

The delegates took the attitude of endeavoring to prove to
the party membership that they were "Scientific Socialists,"
rather than the attitude of workingmen trying to build a po-
litical organization for the protection and advancement of
their class interests. "This is the right theory. This is scien-
tific," was the burden of most speeches. Those who argued
"This is politically expedient. This will gather the biggest
working class political force," spoke an unknown tongue. So
far as they were understood, they were misunderstood and
damned for opportunistic heretics who would sacrifice principle
for mere politics.

And yet the real problem was not the production of a
scholarly essay on war, but the organization of the opposition
to war and conscription, the detailing of a program of con-
structive work to alleviate the misery and suffering resulting
from military operations and to organize the food and other
supplies for the protection of the civil population. The weak-
ness of the convention declaration lies not merely in its pre-
liminary essay, which is good in the main, but in a program
that is essentially negative. The failure of the convention was
that it gave practically no time to considering the methods
and program of action in this crisis, but it devoted three days
to considering theories about how the crisis arose. Surely
the heights of political incapacity are not far away from the
convention plateau.

In dealing with the recommendation of the committee on
constitution to liberalize the "penal code" of the party which
now prohibits members choosing a liberal in preference to a
reactionary where there is no Socialist candidate, the same
domination of theory, pure and simple, was denioi:.;trated.
Practically every state that has had experience with non-par-
tisan and second election laws finds that its members, in large
numbers, refuse to be disfranchised when the Socialist can-
didates fail to get by the primary. In hundreds of instances

issues of local importance remain to be determined after the
party candidate is eliminated. In some cases vital battles in
the great class struggle put the Socialist candidate in the an-
omalous position of dividing the working class vote and throw-
ing the election to the arch-representative of the capitalists.
Facts were told to the theorists who dominated the convention,
but they smothered those facts with the phrase "that ail other
parties and candidates are necessarily capitalist parties and
candidates and there is nothing to choose between them."
They voted to retain the penal code in all its rigor, despite the
appeals made by such comrades as our National Secretary
Adolf Germer, Jos. Cannon, Dan Hogan of Arkansas, Anna
Maley, John C. Kennedy and George Goebel. But they don't
really mean it. They were challenged to expel those who
had violated their blue laws, but refused to take up the chal-
lenge. In truth, the facts dazed them and, while not ready
to enforce their criminal statutes, they are hanging on to them
until their vision clears again and they can decide what change
really must be made.

This review of the convention may seem severe. But the
situation is not hopeless. There was a tremendous devotion, a
splendid enthusiasm and earnestness in the membership of the
convention. Their real fault is in the position which they
have permitted to grow up around them. They have been cut
off from the daily contact with the work of the organized
working class in a large measure. They have not had con-
stantly to test theories in the crucible of practical action. If
the movement can be brought down and safely rooted in the
facts of economic and political life the talents of the com-
rades at St. Louis will go far toward creating an irresistible and
a fundamentally revolutionary force in American life.

Five and Fifty

If fifty men did all the work

And gave the price to five.
And let those five make all the rules —
You'd say the fifty men were fools.

Unfit to be alive.

And if you heard complaining cries

From fifty brawny men.
Blaming the five for graft and greed.
Injustice, cruelty indeed —

What would you call them then?

Not by their own superior force

Do five on fifty live.
But by election and assent.
And privilege and government —

Powers that the fifty give.

If fifty men are really fools.

And five have all the brains.
The five must rule as now we find;
But if the fifty have the mind —

Why don't they take the reins?

— The Forerunner.

Page fourteen

Propaganda

The Western Comrade

Radicals or Fetish-Worshippers ^^ "• ^^^

spa

B

IRTH, growth and death — ths inevitable law of all
nature — applies with relentless and unvarying force.
Organizations are not exempt from its workings.
From protista to primate, from atomic to astral,
from individual to social, the law operates impartially.

The radical, whose belief was born of science, at times
seems to forget the workings of its impersonal parent.

Organization is essential to progress. Yet every help be-
comes a hindrance when misapplied or when a newer tool is
required. We tend to worship organization more than pro-
gress. Humanity ever has created masters instead of servants.
Indeed, the pathway to democracy is strewn with golden calves
and misspent generations in the wilderness of serving institu-
tions created by the people.

By this we see the same state of barbarism as of old today
marks the condition of mankind. The barbarian is essentially
a fetish-worshipper. While in every age the esoteric circle
broke through the darkness of form into the liberty of the
truth portrayed in the form, the masses have bowed — and do
still — along with most of their "practical" leaders, before
fetishes.

Yes, we are a race of fetish-worshippers. Laugh not at the
man who carries a potato in his pocket to ward off rheumatism
or at our darker brother who sees in the left posterior appen-
dage of Brer' Rabbit a propitious omen.

Radicals, "advanced and serious thinkers" in general, no
longer worship state constitutions and potentates. Religious
dogmas they question, and topple from their lofty pedestals
the enshrined heroes of exploitation and oppression. Yet
many have made but this one step. The worship has been
transferred merely to different idols.

Does your organization serve you, or do you serve your
organization?

Are you still the fetish worshipper, bowing in slavery to your
own faiths, philosophical systems, party constitutions, ballots,
and such "scraps of paper," attaching a superstitious and un-
warranted importance to these? Or are you employing these
useful and necessary tools AS TOOLS for the construction
of a world-wide democracy of co-operation?

Let us look for a moment at the meaning of the act when
any group of individuals organize for the advancement of

society. Human society has moved forward with much the
same movement as an amoeba. This one-celled animal re-
sponds to its economic environment by pushing out finger-like
processes from any part of its body to surround whatever food
lies closest in its microcosm.

Society, too, has advanced irregularly through the leader-
ship of little minorities — thinkers who pushed out from the
mediocre majority to surround some tiny morsel in the infinite
ocean of truth. In this "absorbing" pursuit too many find
satiety and insist that their tiny mote of truth is the open
sesame to the portals of emancipation.

Every organization contains within itself an inherent ten-
dency to become static, whereas society is ever dynamic. Here
is the source of much of the difficulty of social effort.

Even as we grasp (relatively) truth in the light of today's
experience, new events demand a readjustment of our esti-
mates — a readjustment which creeds, constitutions and organ-
izations make difficult.

I see an evil in social alignment. By uniting with similarly
sighted individuals, a machine — a tool — is formed through
which to propagate the light and lead to further light.- We have
taken a cross section of the stream of evolution, studied it
and examined many details in the laboratory of our own or-
ganization — forgetting all the while that the stream flows ever
onward, gathering strength and meaning on the way.

In consternation we cry out for evolution to work itself out
in accordance with our particular plans. We want evolution
to work with us instead of reversing the process. We tend to
forget that "the bird of time is on the wing." With various
brands of radical salt we set out to decorate the tail of the
fleeing social bird.

Organization from the earliest development of mankind has
tended, after the first warm enthusiasm, to attach importance
to itself per se — to rest on the laurels of past achievement.
The members tend to drop the scientific attitude for the or-
thodox. Within human limitations no other fate is possible
for an organization. The movement is ever forward. The
organization, after the highwater mark of achievement, is ever
backward.

Death — new births — death — birth. The cycle goes ever
round so far as individuals are concerned. The individual

Lots of willing workers at the Industrial School. Note the teamster, showing equality of sexes as well as equal suffrage at Llano. They

will have lots to do with harvesting the garden produce this summer.

The Western Comrade

Propaganda

Page fifteen

One of the new tractors bringing in lumber and cement. Both of the trailers were built at Llano. Th<
fc, . , _ ^ road built to the timber in the mountains south of the Colony.

e engine is now being used on

dies; the species is perpetuated through the ages. Aeons see
the species disappear; hfe continues. The single organiza-
tion exists only to advance the ever-upward movement of
society.

Nor is one cause alone the corner-stone of evolution.

Countless forces act, interact and react in the ramifying
maze of our social fabric. The resultant force is the measure
of human development.

The rationalist has been designated as one "who is re-
ligiously irreligious." Other brands of radicalism tend like-
wise to adopt a faith to prove, living in the glories of the
fathers of their movements, forgetting the spirit of these old
leaders. So do members of other groups of people. It is a
natural and (seemingly) inevitable working of psychological
laws.

Any radical group in its youthful days begins work on a
new social fabric. About the time they get the foundation
laid the builders begin to pay more attention to the variety
of bricks than to the nature of the structure. They also see
others employed on the job under the inspiration of different
philosophical fathers. Instead of all laboring together, there is
a tendency — attributable to worship of the fetish of "iVrV"
organization as an end in life — for each group to build about
themselves a great wall, windowless and doorless, defying any
others to enter. So, instead of a great social structure, built
by divers workers, there is danger of a large nnmber of these
one-room prisons of progress.

I say this is a danger. Perhaps I should say it is a hin-
drance. For there are always rebels among rebels who are
ready to grasp the red flag of the revolution from its resting
place to carry it forivard.

Come-outism is the saving ferment of radicalism, rescuing
it from the stagnation of static organization.

Hosea and the ancient prophets illustrate the point. These
rebels thundered against the ecclesiastical and political ex-
ploiters of their day. Their followers of other generations
worshipped them, but forgot their spirit of revolt.

So, today, we hear much of Jeffersonian democracy, Marx-
ian Socialism, Georgian philosophy, etc., but see all too little
of the scientific spirit and independent attitude of the founders
of these systems.

When The Great Adventure was launched in California to

restore the land to the people there were authoritarians in the
ranks of the Socialist Party and the Single Tax groups who
objected because they felt the methods and some of the phases
of the proposed law were not quite up to the orthodox Marxian
and Georgian standards.

There were come-outers in each organization and in other
groups and among the free-lances and the masses when the
message reached them. They swept the foggyism of dying
worshippers aside.

Conservatism is the price we must pay for any set form.
Growth means change. Constitutions, forms, and rules, while
essential — or at least often convenient — are to some degree
hindering forces. At the best they should be elastic and
relative, not binding — made for use and not for their own
sake. There is nothing sacred in form and method. Results
alone count.

Radicalism needs a careful, critical self-examination today.
We see the prominent groups standing pat in large measure,
while individuals within are breaking over the barrers to unite,
as in the Great Adventure and the International Workers' De-
fense Leagues functioning over the nation.

Do not overlook the fact that these men and women are
functioning in new groups as individuals and not as representa-
tives of the old groups. These older organizations must
emerge from the philosophies of the past into the actuality
of the present if they are to continue to function as revolution-
ary movements.

Why worry if they do not so long as those within them are
active? Let us cease to be fetish-worshippers. Let us cease to
worry over any particular organization or group. The im-
portant matter is that there shall be organized effort. Let
us not forget the end through adoration of the means.

There is scant place in radicalism for the doctrinaire, the
lover of constitutions and fixed authority, the over-organized,
the orthodox, the timid, the imitator, the "practical" man.
The hope lies in the rebel, the come-outer, the dreamer, the
inspired lunatic, who plunges into the streat adventures of
revolution free and untrammeled bv creeds, constitutions and
by-laws of his own or any others' making.

[Comrade Bobspa is quite well known to the readers of radical publica-
tions from his book reviews. The Western Comrade is glad to announce
that the book reviews will be among the good things the Comrade will
be able to offer its readers. Page 23 carries Bobspa's first contribution.]

Page sixteen

About

Llano del Rio Colony Adds *

NE of the most important land transactions
in the history of the Llano del Rio Colony
was finished late in April when Comrade
Harriman, as president of the Llano del Rio
Company, signed the necessary papers which trans-
ferred to the Colony's holdings 2750 acres of land
in the southwestern portion of the San Joaquin
Valley. The land is a few miles from Wasco, about
thirty miles from Bakersfield, and is agricultural land.
This is the first large tract acquired not con-
tiguous or nearly contiguous to the original holdings
in the Big Rock Irrigation District. With the acquis-
ition of this land, the Llano del Rio Colony will be
able to make its first step in the plan to develop lands
in districts where products can be raised that can
not be profitably grown in Llano.

The land is rich and productive. This district has
lagged behind most of the San Joaquin Valley in
agricultural development, having been held in large
tracts used mainly as cattle ranges. It lies within the
semi-tropic belt, and is excellent for such fruits as
grapes, olives, figs, with the possibility that lemons
and oranges may be grown here to advantage. Al-
falfa also produces heavily.

The new land undoubtedly lies within the oil belt
of Central California, and as soon as arrangements
can be made, drilling for oil will commence. An ex-
perimental well was started on this property several
years ago, but capital was insufficient and it was
abandoned. However, it was sunk far enough so that
gas was struck, and for some time engines were op-
erated with this convenient fuel.

Another well on the Kern lands developed hot
water, offering some special possibilities of com-
mercialization along the lines of establishing a sani-
tarium. This is an artesian well and gives a good
flow. Irrigation in this district is by means of wells.
Sixteen wells are already drilled on the new Colony
holdings. Work will commence just as soon as it can
be arranged, and the task of developing the big
ranch will be hurried as rapidly as is practicable.

Of course, no definite plans have been made for
cropping the new ranch, as the final details of the big
transaction were finished but a few days ago. How-
ever, as this is one of the finest fruit districts of
California, it has been suggested that a great vine-
vard be set out. Since the grape growers of Cali-
fornia have become organized co-operatively, this
has become a well-stabilized business and offers bet-
ter opportunities than almost any other field.

Peaches, apricots, prunes, plums, figs, olives, also
do well in this district, and large acreages of them
will probably be put out as soon as possible. As a
pear, anole, and cherry district it does not offer any
possibilities, but the Antelope Valley holdings of the
Colony are of the very best for this purpose.

The pew land is about seven hours' travel by auto-
mobile from Llano, with excellent road most of the
way. The intention is to establi.'^h a camp there where
men and horses may be housed, and then to farm it

f

How We Live a

HAT does it cost to live at Llano?

WHow do your prices compare with those at other places?
How is the high cost of living affecting the comrades at the Colony?

What effect will the war have upon the Llano Community and the

cost of living there?

These are a few of the questions that pour in daily from interested com-
rades all over the country.

Our answer frequently has been a general statement that we buy at the
lowest wholesale prices and sell to ourselves at cost plus freight; that we do
not overcharge or exploit ourselves; that we arrive at the cost of our own
products and sell to ourselves at the lowest price and that we have the human
trait of wanting to be kind to ourselves.

In considering the comparative cost of living at Llano with that of the
outside, we should not overlook the item of rent. Just deduct that item from
the living cost — if you live at Llano.

Then eliminate the cost of social service. What's that? Well, your doctor's
bill, the nurse's bill, the dentist's bill, the cost of
social amusements, education and incidental cost
of social life. All this comes under social service
and is free.

Then you pay water rates. Cut that item off.
You may not have hot and cold running water in
your sink, but you will have no monthly water
bill nor will you have it even when it comes piped
in the new permanent houses.

There are no telephones in the private houses,
though we have excellent service to the outside.
No telephone bill.

At present the illumination is by kerosene or
gasoline lamps. Electricity is used in the machine
shop on night shifts and at the dances and enter-
tainments. We have, of course, no gas or electric
light bills. Taxes on all property owned by the
corporation are looked after by the officials and
no trouble ever comes to the colonist from this
source. Officials of the corporation work most
harmoniously with the county, state and national
officials.

Under the genera! heading of social service
come all amusements, sports, pastimes, dances,
and entertainments. These, with all educational
facilities, are free.

Now we will grow more specific. In giving fig-
ures showing prices of some commodities in the
' outside world," we take Chicago prices because
it is the greatest food supply city in the world and
because prices are lower there than in most parts
of the country. Even these prices are conservative
because the prices are higher in the wealthier
parts of the city and in those parts where the
verv poor live and buy in small quantities.

Llano products are pure and put up for home
consumption. Our butter is unexcelled because.

Table of Corriaiat

Butter

Eggs

Flour

Gran. Sugar

Rice

Prunes

Cornmeal

Oatmeal

Starch

Beans, Navy

Beans, Lima

Peas, Dried

Barley

Matches

Kraut

Can. Tomatoes

Can. Corn

Salmon

Sardines

Lard

Bacon

Pork chops

Beef steak

Mutton chops

Fresh trout

Cabbage

Onions

Rhubarb

Spinach

Uoii

is

Page seventeen

2750 Acres to Its Holdings

St tie
we (Jo

ItOM

otlit
liioti

octois

Llano !l

Frank E. Wolfe

mai

rative Prices

Chicago Llano
Ap/l? Ap;i7

$0.53 $0.35
.42 .—

Vi

14.00

Vi .11
.10
.15
.05
.07
.07
.20
.20
.15
.12
.25
) .25
Wi .20
\Vi .18
.30

10.50 ....
.10 ....
.06 ....

"04/2"
.04/2-
.06 ....

.12/2-

.10 Z.

.06/2-
.12 ....

.08
.27
.35
.30
.35
.35
.30
.15
.15
.10
.25

.10
.05

.30
.10
.10

.02 ....

.O2K2-.
.02 ...

Your
Grocer
p
?
?
■}
?

■}
■}
?

J
?

an outside storekeeper once said, we "don't know how to cheat."
The table on this page gives the cost of products at Chicago in April, 1916,
Vpril, 1917, anl in Llano in 1917.
In Chicago soap is 25 per cent higher, all cereals are 50 per cent higher.
No quotations are given on vinegar, cider, or honey. Our present prices
lire: Cider 40c a gallon, vinegar 40c a gallon. Honey at Llano is quoted
Comb honey 15c, extracted honey 7/2C, and this is the highest quality
)ure sage honey. These are pure Llano products. We will have twenty
ons of honey this season. That cuts down the sugar bill for Llanoites.
How do the prices at your grocery compare vvith those at Llano?
We will have over 120 acres in garden and we will keep it coming. Our
vinter garden will be extended. Our potatoes are coming fine. We will have
i greatly increased supply of fruit and in larger variety. We are preparing
to enlarge our cannery. We are fortifying and entrenching.

We are preparing for the future. The war situation changed our plans in
only one way; it made us come to a quick decision to produce more food

and more feed. We may be forced to other ad-
justments, but in no other place can the people
make as quick an adjustment as at Llano. An
hour's notice — less, at certain times — is sufficient
to bring the demanded action.

At the General Assembly April 18th a motion
was made that Llano set the clock ahead one hour.
Then came quick discussion, speeches were short,
pointed, but always constructive. Objections were
trivial, almost humorous. "We wall use the sun-
light." "We will beat the Western hemisphere by
advancing to the European point of efficiency."
"We will add an hour to our day, and use it for
education, amusement, recreation and 'joy of
life.' " These were the arguments and they pre-
vailed. The vote was virtually unanimous.

"When will we set the clock?" "Will it be
next Saturday or Monday?" These questions were
met with a rather startling shout from all over the
hall: "No, no! Do it now!" That settled it. The
affirmative vote was by acclamation and Comrade
L. H. Miller, the Dean of the Colony, whose flow-
ing beard and snowy hair made a picture of Father
Time, set the clock ahead. This brought a brief,
solemn speech from the ubiquitous wag that "the
hour grows late and we should adjourn."

Llano acts in concert. The spirit of solidarity
grows. Whether the question be food supply or be
it any emergency, we can act within an hour. The
efficiency commission has wrought wonders in a
few weeks. Departments are co-ordinating more.
Food prices and regulations will be watched vvnth
great care. Economy and system govern the com-
missary. Every department manager is striving his
utmost.

How does this compare with your hodge-podge
out there in the cut-throat competition?

as huge ranches are usually farmed, with a competent
superintendent in charge. No attempt will be made to
found a city there. It will be purely a subsidiary of
the Llano Colony, owned and controlled by it. Men
will be shifted back and forth as they are required.

Many visitors, and even many residents, have failed
to grasp the bigness of the Llano plan. They have
failed to see further than just what is here at Llano.
They have mistaken the plans of the Llano organiza-
tion as being confined to this particular spot.

But Llano is merely the beginning. It is the dem-
onstration spot. It is the place the colonists have
selected to begin showing what co-operation can
achieve. It is expected that many thousands of acres
of Antelope Valley lands will be added to the Llano
holdings here, but by no means are they to be con-
fined to Llano alone.

Now the first step out has been made. A huge
tract of nearly 3000 acres has been acquired in the
San Joaquin Valley, perhaps 200 miles from Llano,
yet within easy reach. Where will the next one be?
Do you catch the vision of what it means to be a
member of the Llano del Rio Company? Not Llano
alone, but Llano repeated, multiplied, the Llano idea
carried irresistibly throughout the West, conquering
prejudice, spreading hope, extending the co-operative
idea.

From the beginning three years ago with only a
few acres near the present town of Llano to holdings
that take in thousands of acres in the Big Rock Irri-
gation District and contiguous territory and have now
been extended over a range of mountains and into
another great fertile valley, is a notable achievement.

This is a day of tremendous interest in land, es-
pecially farming land. With the entire world clamor-
ing for food, with the governments of most of the
great nations of the world looking toward the United
States for food supply, the acquiring of these great
tracts of land bv the Llano del Rio Co-operative Col-
onv takes on additional interest.

Llano will be able to take care of her own people
and to take care of them royally. In a few years
most of the products consumed will be Llano-pro-
duced. There is no reason why suitable lands cannot
be acquired for every material and food that will be
needed by Llano people.

The eyes of the radical and progressive thinkers,
whether Socialist or otherwise, are being turned
Llano-ward. Opportunity is greater for this com-
munity than ever before. With three years of steady
progress and substantial building standing as a record
of achievement by which the progress of the future
development mav be judged, Llano can confidently
offer to those who believe in the practice as well as
the theory of co-operation something satisfying and
insniring.

On Llano's third birthday she is able to announce
the first large outside purchase. Are you prophet
enough to say what the announcement of two, five»
or seven years more may be?

1

Page eighteen

M

e c n a ni c s

The Western Comrade

^^J^^ P^ ^[^ By L. W. Millsap, Jr.

IHF.SR three little letters do not look very dangerous
' I ' here, but when we study carefully the aifairs of today

X we find that most of the misery and suffering which

we see around us are inseparably connected with

them. This discovery is not new by any means, but the
study of that connection is interesting from any angle and
there are always new developments.

Man seems to have been unfortunate throughout his whole
career, and he has not been entirely to blame for it either.
Nature, entirely without his consent, provided him vnth the
faculties of curiosity and ambition — in short, with a mind — and
she also gave him two hands with which to experiment. Worse
than this, she trained him to stand up on his hind legs and
leave those hands perfectly free to get into trouble.

This was an awful responsibility to place on the shoulders
of any creature, and it is not surprising that man has done
no better than he has. He has had to learn, and the way
has been long and painful.

He began to use those hands and to feel of Nature's raw
material. In that way he acquired knowledge as our Mon-
tessori children do, though his way was crude and painful.
He felt rocks, learned through experience that they would
crush his fingers, but after much pain and many accidents
found he could roll them together to fashion a shelter to pro-
tect himself from storms. He took hold of tree limbs and
found they would bend and spring, but in his experiments
they sprung back and hit him. It was painful, but it started
a train of thought which ended in the construction of the
bow and arrow. He found that wood could be cut into sharp
splinters, and about the first use he could put them to was
thrusting them through his own flesh — through his ears, nose,
lips, etc. — but in so doing he got ideas.

He discovered fire. His curiosity caused him burned hands,
but he gradually obtained fixed and correct ideas concerning
fire. In much the same way he learned the use of metals,
the pain of cut fingers finally teaching him truths that have
been immensely beneficial to the race. He first hurt himself,
then hurt his neighbors intentionally, with his new-found tool.
Eventually they got together and made the valuable discovery
serve them both by bringing greater comfort instead of
greater misery.

Every discovery followed the same rule,, and it follows it
today. Man has turned every discovery against himself first,
then against his neighbors until the effects were well-known,
then together they have used it to the advantage of both.
What he has done singly he has also done collectively. Steam,
electricity, gasoline, explosives, transportation machinery, fly-
ing machinery, printing machinery, motion pictures, micro-
scopes — in fact, anything we might mention — has been used
by man against himself, until we come back to where we
started, to the consideration of R. P. M.

R. P. M. is an abbreviation used in mechanical parlance
meaning revolutions per minute, and this, of course, helps
determine the results.

At first all machines were hand machines and were operat-
ed by turning cranks. The term R. P. M. was not used very
much at this time.

Then came foot-power machinery and the R. P. M. in-
creased. This seemed to be the right thing to do, but we must
remember that ages ago before this it seemed the right thing
for man to put his hand into the fire, and when he began to

increase the R. P. M. of machinery he was destined to make
a more startling discovery than he did in the first instance.

It has not been so many years back that man got the fever
to increase the R. P. M. of his machinery, and at the present
time that fever is at its height. Man throughout the world
is suffering the supreme agony of his experiments along that
line, and at the same time he is beginning slowly to realize
that he can use increased R. P. M. to his advantage just
as easily as he can destroy himself with it and that it is not
nearly so painful. It is exactly the same as when his primi-
tive ancestor found that he could use fire to warm his hands,
instead of using it to burn his fingers.

When man had arrived at the age of hand and foot power
machinery he had just reached a point where he could con-
vert Nature's raw materials into a form that he could use and
do it without much effort or loss of time on his part. Then
he discovered that Nature's forces — heat, electricity, and light
— could be harnessed to turn that machinery.

This discovery looked so promising that his enthusiasm knew
no bounds, and when he saw Nature's forces turning machinery
and producing necessities it fascinated him to such an extent
that he thought all his problems were solved, and so eager
was he to increase the revolutions per minute and turn out
more product that he became a slave to the fascination
and entirely lost sight of the fact that his needs were supplied
and that he could rest on his oars, so to speak.

He was feverishly eager to produce more and more and
more. All of Nature's raw material must be secured and
turned into finished product. Every source of natural power
must be secured and developed. Material in astonishing quan-
tities was converted into productive machinery as well as
product, and the vast sources of power were harnessed to it
with the constant aim to increase the R. P. M., until the in-
dustrial world became one mad, feverish rush to produce,
produce, produce.

What is the result? Nature is still wise. Man forgot that
Nature had provided for future generations as well as the
present and had stored her treasures in the form in which
they kept the best. Man prepares material for his own use,
but if he does not use it Nature eventually converts it back
into the raw state; and there is no escape from this law.
One way or another Nature will accomplish her purpose.

What was man to do with the increasing product of indus-
trial machinery? He could not consume it, hence it was nec-
essary to market it. This fact enabled the more highly
developed nations to force their product on the nations
inferior in this respect. But no sooner had this occurred than
they, too, began to make inroads on Nature's storehouses and
to pile up product they could not consume. Advertising was
developed and speed-up systems applied to them. Poor blind
humanity! All it could see was SPEED. Man was delirious
with R. P. M. fever and rushed on, until now, instead of op-
plying the abbreviation R. P. M. to the movements of mach-
inery, it can be applied to the movements of nations and to
the movements of groups of humanity!

Revolutions are the talk of the hour. We are wondering
how many Revolutions Per Minute we will be called upon to
witness and engage in before the cataclysm is over, but through
it all we can see some light.

Mankind is learning that production for use is the only plan
that safely agrees vAih Nature's laws.

The Western Comrade

Education

Page nineteen

Liberty and Play for Baby i

y Prudence S. Brown

IHE good news comes to me that since reading "Con-
cerning Babies" in the March Western Comrade sev-
eral mothers have provided keepers for those active
J Httle ones in the household who are just beginning
to creep — yes, even before they had fallen over the edge of
the bed, or tumbled down stairs, or pulled the tablecloth by the
corner and upset the contents of said table on the floor.
What teachable mothers! My soul takes courage. And they
tell me the fathers helped!

One father brought home a litde 4x4 fence hinged at the
corners; it could be set up anywhere from the kitchen to the
lawn or the parlor, or folded flat and set out of sight if out of
use. He found this right on the sidewalk in front of a second-

Llano's first houses were of canvas. Picture taken in fall of 1914.

hand store; it cost very little. But the strange part of the
story is he would never have seen this valuable folding fence,
and never have known how useful it could be in his home, if
he had not been reading the Western Comrade.

Another very careful father says the fence is not sufficient
protection from floor draughts, and he found a 2x4 dry goods
box, sawed it down to the height of fifteen inches, assisted
his wife in padding the floor and edges attractively, put on
four-inch legs with rollers, and declares his keeper is very
superior to the fence. My special point is the value of these
keepers to the child's individual development and the mother's
nerves and disposition, as well as the peace and harmony of
the home.

I speak of these keepers with the most profound seriousness ;
I am sure that I am not alone in my sympathy for the already
overtaxed mothrer, who is kept on a torturous, nervous strain
during every waking moment of her child's life because of
the lack of just such a convenience as a keeper for the wee
sprite who takes delight in scattering everything, from the
ashes in the kitchen stove to the books on the library shelves.

The keeper organizes the child's physical activity as well as
his mental activity. In this he keeps reasonably clean; he
learns his first lesson in appreciation of an individual owner-
ship and use of personal belongings. Here is his wee chair,
his ball, his dog, etc., and no one disturbs his things. The
slight limit to freedom is an advantage to his development in
every way. Indeed, the keeper to the little child is quite as
important as the individual home is to the family.

Nothing can so effectually hurt a child's healthy growth,
mentally and spiritually, as the constant interruptions it re-
ceives when allowed to go freely into everything. It is for-
ever "Come, come, baby, don't get into that," or "No, no!
baby must not touch." What freedom is there to the child
in what is usually called freedom? The more nearly a litde
child can be "let alone" while he plays, the more naturally
he will grow and develop in every way.

Take him out of his keeper occasionally for a romp and
change, and by all means give him some time to run or creep
about the house, but this sort of freedom should come to him
when father or mother is free to watch his rapid movements
and divert his attention from forbidden corners without letting
him feel the shock of interruption.

This sort of care of the little one from ten months to the
time when he can understand how to act in the home com-
munity will establish great peace and comfort in the house-
hold, save the baby many bumps and screams, and the mother
many nervous shocks.

A child's first play is nothing more or less than unconscious
work; he puts his whole being into the effort to make or un-
make, to take apart or put together, everything that he finds;
he examines, studies and tries to define everything he can
touch. He is, in short, a serious little student of life and of
things, and he well deserves a small nook to himself, a place of
safety and security from any sort of disturbance or intrusion.
As parents and protectors of babies, it is our first duty to pro-
vide an environment suitable to our little one's original re-
search work.

A bar could easily be made with supports that would fit over
the keeper, upon which the pendulum balls could be swung,
and these could be removed and the large ball for exercising
the feet be hung in the place. As baby tires of any one toy,
it should be placed where he cannot see it and different things
put within his reach. That is part of the organization work.

By one who was with Dr. Montessori last year in Spain we
are told of a very happy device for young children. Very
tiny tables just the height were used as the base of insets of
varying sizes; then, wth a small chair, baby could begin the
experiment of taking out and replacing the insets. This would
be a beautiful game inside the keeper.

Now I anticipate a question : What is to be done when baby
throws everything over the top and onto the floor outside?
Just leave them right there; he is quite intelligent enough to

This view of Llano shows the newest section, houses being of wood.

perceive that he has deprived himself of the pleasure of
playing with them, quite bright enough to discover the in-
convenience of being without toys, and will learn, if you allow
him the opportunity, to keep them where they belong. Leave
him quite alone to his discovery, leave him destitute of every-
thing; finally, when he is asleep, carefully put all of these
things away where he will not see them again for several days.
Don't for the world pick them up and give them to him; that
would be fatal to his discernment of cause and effect. Trust
your baby's intelligence ; organize and observe and say very
few words and mean what you say.

Page twenty

Fiction

The Western Comrade

The Thing in Itself

By Clara Cushman

S she washed the breakfast dishes in front of the open

A window she had seen him creep behind the fence
where the grapevine grew. Now, three hours later,

he was still there. The sinewy length of him lay belly

down, but he was not asleep. His elbows supported his bulky
shoulders, and at intervals his hands were busy doing some-
thing — she could not see what. A tiny circle of light played
above him, like the reflection of the sun upon glass, one mo-
ment dartmg hither and thither among the leaves of a neigh-
boring peach tree and along the top of the fence, the next
melting into the sunshine of the garden. She had read in
one of her Sunday supplements of the amazing possibilities
of mirror focusing. She concluded that the intruder was ma-
nipulating a mirror with a view to obtaining a plan of her
home; or, worse, the luminous circle might be a reflection
from the gleaming barrel of a revolver!

And his clothes were not reassuring. She examined him
carefully through her late husband's field glasses. The loose
gray trousers poorly matched the tight short-sleeved black coat
of an ancient style, save that they, too, were of a fashion long
since discarded. The ill clad legs and trunk only served to
make the red sweater which she had seen him so fastidiously
fold and lay in the cleanest grass with his cap, look the more
brilliant and finely woven.

She hesitated no longer. Alone in the house, with this sus-
picious trespasser at large, she would not sleep a wink that
night. She went to the telephone and summoned the police.

Two officers responded to the call.

"Now," said the first, as they viewed the intruder from the
housewife's kitchen window, "you stay behind the tree yonder
and watch. I can easy get the drop on him while he's layin*
like that. And when I cover him, you come and help with
the cuffs, if I need 'em."

Revolver cocked, he slipped crouchingly along the outer side
of the fence until opposite the man, when he reared himself
cautiously. The man was gazing intently through a magni-
fying glass. At what? Nothing, as far as the policeman
could make out.

"Whatcha doin' there, you?"

The man did not turn as he
grow."

"What?"

"Watching the tendrils swing round in the sunlight. Please
go away. I'm busy."

"Busy! You damned hobo, you've been loafing there four
hours. Get up and come along."

He turned his face at this, and gazed at the officer mildly.
His skin was dark and weather beaten, like an exquisite piece
of tanned leather, to that point where his cap habitually rested,
above which was a high, wide brow of almost marble pallor.
His eyes were large, deep set and of a celestial blue, his cheek
bones high and narrow, his shaven lips slightly tremulous,
and his expression nobly serene.

"Of what am I accused?" he asked.

"Vagrancy and tresspassin'. That's private property you're
on and you know it." He still held his revolver discreetly
cocked, as he eyed the man's muscular body. "Get up now,
and no monkeyin' if you don't want me to fill you full of lead."

The man dropped the glass into his pocket and rose, stamp-
ing his feet to rid himself of the cramp his vigil had entailed.
"Yes, I have learned it saves time to go quietly, although I

am neither a vagrant or a trespasser." He slipped his hand
into his trouser pocket and produced a quarter. "There is my
visible means of support, and, as for trespassing, the vine and
the earth I was lying upon are mine. I inherited them."

"Huh! Maybe you inherited a gun, too. What's that lump
in your pocket? Keep your hands up while I look."

But the protuberance in the pocket of his greenish black
coat proved to be a folded razor, a cake of soap wrsvpped in
a blue cotton handkerchief, and a handful of English walnuts.
The officer pocketed the razor.

The man smiled whimsically. "My toilet accessories. And
my dinner. I dine every night at five. But come," his manner
changing, "my time is precious." He reached for his sweater
and cap.

"Who'd ya inherit that fine new sweater from?"

"Yes," he replied, "it is fine and warm. They are warmer
when they are fine. I have learned it saves time to get them
fine and warm, although I would rather have given a pint of
my heart's blood than the three days of precious time I had to
give. Three days! Thirty-six of my hours wasted, gone, just
to keep me warm!" He threw out his arms in a passionate
gesture. "When I should have been at my task! Picking
hops! And I could not stop to watch them grow! It was
'Hurry, hurry, hurry!' But the ache in my shoulders warned
me. It said, 'You must keep me warm or I will hurt you. Then
you will become ill and cannot complete your task.' So I
wasted three days earning the money." His delicate upper
lip trembled, then he subsided into his customary serenity.
"But come, come, come! Let us get through that I may be
on my way."

The bluecoat turned to his assistant. "Nobody home,' he
said, tapping his forehead significantly; then more kindly, to
the intruder:

"Now just put your mitts in here and come along quiet,
and we won't have any trouble." In an undertone to his
companion, "You never can tell about these here nuts."

The prisoner meekly held out his hands and, in doing so,
for the first time observed his captor. Instantly his face be-
came alive as he peered into the officer's face. "Amazing!"
replied, "Watching the vine he whispered to himself. "A marvelous specimen! Ah, if

I could but keep him for observation! A case of atavism —
the flatness above the brain, the sloping forehead, the wide

nose, the " He lifted his manacled hands to trace the

officer's features.

The assistant grabbed him and the bluecoat retreated. For
the second time the intruder smiled. "I ask your pardon. I
am afflicted with absence of mind. But come, come, come!"

At the city marshal's office a further search revealed a
notebook and pencil, and a book, "Sinnesorgane in Pflanzen-
reich." That was all.

"Mebbe it's one of them anarchist books," the "marvelous
specimen" suggested. "You never can tell about these here
nuts."

"May I go now?" the prisoner asked. "I have a great deal
to do before night."

"What's your name?"

"Theodore Beckman."

"How old are ya'?"

"Thirty-seven."

"Where didja' come from?"

(Conlinued on page 28)

Tne Western Comrade

Healtti

Page twenty-one

Carbo-Hydro Phobia !l^

John Dequer

HE word "phobia" means fear. Hence hydrophobia
means the fear of water, and photophobia the fear
of Hght — and so on. He who fears anything unrea-
sonably is on that point a phobiac.

In Llano we have noticed the presence of a rather strange
variety of the phobies. It manifests as an unnatural and un-
reasoned fear of starch. This would class the disease as
carbo-hydro phobia. In most cases it runs a mild course and
passes away with the arrival of garden vegetables. In other
cases it persists and defies all treatment. It is contagious, but
rarely fatal. No cocci germ is responsible for its spread. It
rarely affects the physical organism. It is a purely mental
disease which produces a psychic state in which the patient
attributes all the ills of the flesh from a sore toe to a bald
head to the presence of an imaginary superfluity of starch in
whatever he may have to eat. We have discovered, however,
that the disease is not endemic — that is, it is not a Llano
product. It was imported from other communities, who, per-
haps, rejoice in their export.

The malady originated in the top ends of certain diet en-
thusiasts, and it is transmitted to the lay folk by means of
preachment and suggestion. Starch is the cause of all their
woe — physically, mentally, ^and socially. Their afflictions come
from their starchy diet. Those that hear and believe — catch it.

"What do the Llanoites eat that makes so many of them
ill?" wrote a friend of mine who had been in correspondence
with a local sufferer from the disease under discussion.

I answered: "We eat during the winter months — when fresh
vegetables are hard to get — bread, butter, beans, macaroni,
rice, tomatoes, apples, with now and then a little meat, the
latter not very often — say twice a month. Fish is had occa-
sionally. Mush of some sort may be had every morning. We
drink coffee and tea, and have a fair amount of m'lk — not al-
ways all we want, but enough to keep healthy. This is our
fare during the hard part of the winter. No one died of
starvation or grew excessively lean except those who were so
unfortunate as to become afflicted."

Now, if we consider that our people come from different
climates, that they live — many of them — under pioneer con-
ditions, you will find that Llano is a supremely healthy com-
munity. We have the pure, dry air, the clear water and pleas-
ant climate that cannot but make for health.

To those who do not burden their souls with borrowed
troubles and who engage in active, constructive thought and
labor, Llano is a place favored by nature. Man will keep
healthy even on her winter menu.

Let us carefuly analyze the food of the Llanoites and see
if there is any excuse for people who catch this new-fangled
phobia.

Bread here, as elsewhere, is the staff of life. It, specially
in its white form, is a spook to our patient. It contains starch.
Surely, and starch we need. It is an element in any diet.
But bread is not starch alone. It contains gluten, and gluten
is a protein product and is equally as essential to life as starch.
Bread is generally eaten with butter or peanut butter, which
adds to its nutritive value.

The late Dr. Austin Flint, one of America's foremost physi-
ologists, has said of wheat: "In many vegetable grains known
as cereals there exist, in variable proportions, a highly nutritive
nitrogenized substance called gluten. This is found in great
abundance (from 10 to 35 per cent) in wheat." And again:

"The nutritive power of gluten is so great, and it contains
such a variety of alimentary principles, that dogs are well
nourished and can live indefinitely on it, when taken as the
sole article of food." Of course, dogs, being by nature meat
eaters, would suffer more quickly than men. But they have
an advantage: They are of lower intelligence, and, therefore,
are immune to this new phobia.

By kneading white flour under a gently flowing stream of
water the starch is removed from it — a process used in the
manufacture of macaroni, and which may be still further car-
ried out by the cook. Yet at macaroni, which at best is only
partially starch, the victim shies like a broncho at tumbleweed.

Besides starch and gluten, wheat flour used in the making
of bread and macaroni contains vegetable fibrin, a substance
analogous to muscular fibrin; vegetable albumen, similar to
that found in the white of an egg or in meat. These are nitro-
genous substances for which the sufferer thinks he is starving.

Nitrogenous substances are needed by the organism. They
are of great importance and are found in many forms in the
vegetable kingdom, from which every living being gets them
either directly or indirectly. The sufferer from carbo-hydro
phobia thinks he is dying from the want of them, while he
eats bread on which a carnivorous dog will thrive.

The two classes of food of chief importance in the vegetable

Municipal Wood Yard at Llano

world are those represented, first, by gluten in wheat, and,
second, by legumine in beans and peas. Vegetable albumen
is to be found in turnips, carrots, cabbages and so forth. The
nutritive qualities of vegetable and animal albumen are iden-
tical.

In the dreaded starches served to the people at Llano a
chemist will tell you that you will find the following nitrogenous
substances for which our victim imagines he starves: Gluten,
in bread, macaroni, oatmeal, and other breakfast foods, to-
gether with vegetable albumen, vegetable fibrin and vegetable
casein.

We are, however, not vegetarians — as any member of the
flock or herd will discover. We have butter, not in abundance,
not enough for our pleasure, but with salad oil and peanut
butter we make it do. None of these last mentioned con-
tain starch, although some contain sugar, to which our organ-
ism finally converts all starch.

We eat meat occasionally, as we can afford it, also fish.
And when all is said, the time of year considered, and the
food supply cooked as it ought to be, the food of Llano will
sustain abundantly the efforts required by the men and women
here. And there is no excuse for anybody to suffer with
carbo-hydro phobia. Nature has given us in the so-called
starch foods enough of the opposite, even without meat, to
balance the ration for most of us.

Page twenty-two

M

a gazi ne

Su

m m ar y

TKe western Comrad*

What Thinkers Think

The Substance of Instructive

ATLANTIC

Education As Mental Discipline. — American education is dominated by
the theory that there are general faculties of memory, reasoning, and
observation which can be developed by arbitrary mechanical exercises.
"Content education" holds that the subjects taught must contain elements
of specific experience, problems and activities which mean something to
the child. The child who explains that you are "not expected to understand
algebra, only to do it," and the hopeless failure of the language work, not
only in Latin but in English, illuminate the mistake at the base of the
mental discipline idea. It has recently been computed that the efficiency
of Latin teaching in one state was between ten and fifteen per cent. Does
such a record as this guarantee training or does it indicate DAMAGE to
the mind and character? Culture studies are desirable when they are
taught in a way that makes them a permanent factor in a child's interest. —
Abraham Flexner.

LITERARY DIGEST

The Hygiene of Type. — Arthur E. Boswick calls attention to the fact
that the diminutive size of the type in which books are printed is a menace
to our eyesight. Searching for books in large type suitable for tired eyes
he has only been able to collect four hundred volumes. Ten point is
recommended for ordinary use. Fourteen point for tired eyes, and thirty
point for children under seven. The eye adapts itself to a standard length
of line, and wide columns invoke extra fatigue. Standardization of size
of type and width of columns is to be recommended.

PEARSON'S

Uncle Sam's Dishonest Servants. — In discussing our so-called "public
servants" I shall not mention the pension scandal nor the pork barrel, but
I want to draw attention to the minor thefts of our United States Sen-
ators and Congressmen. There are laws that provide positively that a
government employe shall receive only his actual expenses when travel-
ling on official business. Congress pays itself mileage of twenty cents a
mile and admits that it is excessive. Besides this, at one session which
ended at the moment the next session opened, the members not even
leaving their seats, the members were very indignant that they did not
get the 226,000 dollars due them on mileage to and from their homes.
There is an allowance of $1500 a year for clerk hire; many members give
the largest part of this to members of their families for nominal services.
There are an immense number of sinecures used to promote the personal
interests of Senators and Congressmen. One Federal Judge possessed of
great wealth was retired on full pay, $6,500 a year. He was then elected
to the Senate. His average attendance has been 14 days a year. He draws
$7,500 a year for this, gets his mileage allowance and keeps an office force
at $6,000 more to make excuses for his absence. The abuse of personal
privilege is another public scandal. — R. Sackett.

POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

A Power House as a Futurist Painter Sees It. — The Futurists try hard
to translate motion into color and line. Miss Stevens calls her picture of
a power house, pictorial velocity. She says there has been no attempt in
art to find a method adequate, to express the vastness and stupendous ac-
tivity of events today. Anything moving rapidly loses its definite form in
lines of direction. Motion and light destroy the solidity of material bodies.
Those artists who paint mechanical forms have achieved nothing of the
life, or force, or purpose of the object. The futurists make their engines
move, throb, create. Something is always happening in a futurist's pic-
tures and the great variety of color and changing lines helps to convey this
impression.

THE OUTLOOK

Prisoners' Mail. — In a summary showing mediaeval custom being prac-
ticed in the restriction of the mail of the inmates of most American Stale
prisons, Mr. J. J. Sanders gives a report of the regulations in the different
stales. Some Slates only allow one letter every two months. 500,000
persons pass through American prisons every year, and the prime source
of this stream is ignorance. Everything that can awaken their intelligence
is valuable, especially familiarity with current events and communication
with relatives and friends. No prison riols occur in the Stales where letter
writing is unrestricted. Nothing will make a person more morose than
being cut off from his loved ones, and free communication keeps their
minds occupied with wholesome and elevating thoughts.

Articles in April Magazines

WORLD'S WORK

A Tunnel From England to France. — The British are now in favor of
the project of a tunnel under the Chemnel. If they had it now and it
shortened the war by only two days the saving in actual money would
pay the whole cost of construction. It will be the longest tunnel in the
world, thirty- three miles long. The plan is to drive two tubes through
the lower grey chalk, which is impervious to moisture, and to drive
secondary tunnels which will slope in the opposite direction, being low at
the shore and high in the middle. These will drain the tunnel and serve to
carry off the excavated material. With this system they can be working
at several sections of the mam tunnel at the same time. It is not considered
at present that the defense of the tunnel offers any difficulties. — G. D. Knox.

SATURDAY EVENING POST

Russian Democracy at Work- — Russian democracy today has the army
with it and limitless financial credit. What is less realized here, the Rus-
sian, thanks to the village Mirs, the municipal councils and the rural
Zemstvos, have a vital tradition of democracy and a broad experience in
self-government. The Mir is the peasant village organization, and transacts
its business on a basis of democracy and communism more direct and
simple than our Colonial town meetings. Calling themselves the group of
toil they composed a third of the first Duma and surprised all by their
political sagacity. The zemstvos are county and provincial councils, in-
tensely and heroically democratic in their activities. Imprisoned and exiled
for their social service work by the bureaucracy, by a miracle of what
Kropolkin calls "mutual aid " they developed their extralegal activities
under the leadership of Prince Lvov, now premier of New Russia. In spile
of their parliamentary strength they failed to democratize Russia be-
cause they had not the support of the army and the international bankers.
The new army has drawn its officers from the "Intelligentzia," almost
wholly radical, and the bankers have come to the support of the Republic
because the Autocracy had proved a rotten reed in conducting the war.
— Arthur Bullard,

THE NEW REPUBLIC

Four Justices of the United Slates Supreme Court believe that the
Oregon Minimum Wage law is constitutional ; four believe that it is un-
constitutional. Owing to the form under which the case was appealed,
this equal division validates the law. If the form had been slightly differ-
ent it would have been invalidated. On such precarious chances the fate
of a law of the first importance has depended. The delay of four years
consumed in fighting the case has also discouraged various groups of people
interested, and the popular impulse which started the movement has been
diverted into other channels. Nothing could bring more strikingly to light
the constant peril of leaving to the Courts their present power of re-
viewing legislation. This is too heavy a price to pay for an antiquated
constitutional remnant of our forefathers' distrust of democracies.

HARPER'S

The Safe and Useful Aeroplane. An Interview With Orville Wright. —

The aeroplane, by taking the element of surprise out of warfare, will have
a tendency to make it impossible. It will also have a large share in de-
veloping the new type of civilization which will come after the war.
But extravagant claims must not be made for it. Large planes will never
be practical for the same reason that there are no birds that compare
in size with mammals. The weight of a bird increases as its cube, whereas
the area of the wings increases as its square. The aeroplane surpasses
in safety and in swiftness all other means of transportation. An aero-
plane sails just as well upside down. The stopping of the machine only
means that you have to volplane down. The one difficulty to deal with
is the establishing of proper landing places all over the country,

COLLIER'S

Commission Control. — Competitive production having failed, co-operative
production is being organized in the industrial corporations. These cor-
porations will combine first in like industries and finally in the one indus-
trial corporation of the United States. There has been a childish desire
on the part of the people to break up these combinations, but the inflexible
law of nature is behind them. Previous to government ownership the
same process of governmental administration of private corporations was
adopted in Germany. Industrial administration must, however, be con-
tinuous and not subject to political uncertainties. — Charles P. Steinmetz.

The Western Cc

Book Reviews

Page twenty-three

Reviews of Recent Readable Books ^

y D. Bobspa

"The Chosen People*'

Friends of the Mooney case and all participating in the San Francisco
and other labor fights will read with interest Sidney L. Nyburg's "The
Chosen People." Sympathetic understanding of the complex elements
underlying the conflict between labor and capital, a broad insight into
human nature, the ability to dissect human emotions and to tell a lale
simply, graphically and convincingly are qualities that enabled this popu-
lar writer to produce one of the few good novels of the present year — a
novel that will stand high with the stories of any year.

The plot centers about a Baltimore strike and the trial of a strike-
leader on a trumped-up murder charge. Dr. Philip Graetz, youthful Jewish
rabbi of a wealthy synagogue, brought all of his boyish idealism to bear
in an attempt to bring the warring classes to harmony through the appli-
cation of ethics and abstract justice. The strike was in the factory of
the president of his congregation, the only garment works in the city that
refused to give any sort of recognition to the union.

David Gordon, Russian Jew and prominent attorney, was hired by a
rival manufacturer to defend the accused man and supplied with unlimited
funds to maintain the strike. David took advantage of this opportunity
to advance the union standing. He showed clearly that race, religion,
ethics, justice and humanity are all swept aside in worship of the great
god Profit. The strike was allowed to go on until the banking interests
of Baltimore found the financial interests of the city were beginning to
suffer, when they pulled the strings that brought the recalcitrant factory
owner to a compromise. None were willing to have their connection with
the settlement known, so the public (?redit was given to Dr. Graetz, adding
to his fame.

This is a bald, crude statement of a fraction of the dramatic situations
skillfully woven into a flesh and blood story by the genius of Mr. Nyburg.
A love story, while not the dominant element, proves a telling motive in
the thread of the novel.

Ellen, the young settlement nurse, agnostic and Socialist, as well as
the labor lawyer, David Gordon, reveal much of the causes and meaning
of the unrest of society. The factory owner asked angrily of the attorney:
'Since when, under our code of laws, have innocent men been forced to
try their cases in the newspapers?"

"I should say," was David's bland retort, "it became necessary im-
mediately after private corporations learned to punish personal grievances
in the Criminal Court."

"The Chosen People" is no bitterly partisan class document. The human
nature of the human being is not lost sight of. We are studying men,
not types. The rich factory owner is pictured as a bloodsucker, but the
reason he is and can be a vampire is revealed. The novel is a powerful
human document of profound appeal.

Mr. Nyburg holds up a magic glass which is crystal-clear for the Gentile
to gaze upon the Hebrew as he is, and at the same lime a mirror into
which the Jew may look for a critical self-examination.

Broadness of spirit and cosmic outlook are embodied in this readable
novel that finds its gripping theme in the heart of American industrialism.

Kussey, Greenberg and Nyburg! What a debt we owe to the penetration
of these Jews in presenting their keenly analytical pictures of the tragedy
of capitalism's mad rule.

"The Soliloquy of a Hermit**

I have heard John Cowper Powys lecture, and his soul-stirring message
was just what the reading of his inimitable essays in "Visions and Re-
visions" and "Suspended Judgments" would lead one to expect — the poet,
drtist and ora'or in one combination. But he did not receive all of the
family genius, as his older brother, Theodore Francis Powys, contributes
an unusually fine monograph "The Soliloquy of a Hermit." Thomas
a'Kempis, Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus have their modern projection In
the confessions of this English farmer, contented to live his life apart
from the mad ambitions of the world. "I am not here to do right or
wrong, or to teach anyone; I am here to live," he writes. This comrade,
who wears the badge of Socialism, wonders "if we shall ever understsmd
that the world is not made for work, but for joy."

Mr. Powys is not a slave to dogmatic assertions and beliefs. He is
primitive enough to be swayed by the moods that come to him. Here
is a comrade after my own heart, truly. The only way to transfer the
charm of the 143 pages of the little book would be to quote it entirely.
I wondered what the author was "driving at" when first I began to
browse through the unchaplered thread of the soliliquy. Perhaps I don't

know yet. But on the way I paused frequently to gather a rich bit of
ripe fruitage which tasted ambrosial to my parched intellectual palate.
In our swing away from the grossness of materialism and the grossness
of spirituahly we welcome such sane philosophers of life as it is.

"If Wishes Were Horses**

The Countess of Barcynska, while not a brilliant writer, is always in-
teresing and possesses a rare faculty of understanding human nature that
is lacking many of the more spectacular rhetoricians. She won her way
to recognition through such books as "The Little Mother Who Sits at
Home," and "The Honey Pot." In "If Wishes Were Horses" she gives
a picture of Enghsh life that is photographic in its realism. It tells of
Martin Leffley, towards whom I feel as amiable as I do towards a few
weak-souled clerks I have had to work among in my days. He was a
"cheap" clerk, with boss-worshipping propensities; a selfish ambition, a
certain little ability to play the game for all it is worth, gained for him
a rapid rise. But his main "asset" (he considered her in such light) was
his wise, unselfish wife, whose only fault was the idolizing of the brute
who marned her for his physical comfort. An aunt who dealt in second-
hand clothing, and whose money was more welcome than her presence, was
another factor in his development. This self-made thing in pants became
successful in business and by trimming his sails so as not to damage big
business sailed into the right to string an M. P. after his name, by the
grace of the Socialist and radical vote. But there came a lime when all
did not go so smoothly, and in the midst of the catastrophe which overtook
him he learned the real meaning of his wife's love. The shallowness and
pretense of the modern social life is powerfully depicted. The characters
are real, the situations natural and the novel strongly written, the powerful
lessons and the story elements being skillfully blended.
* * *
*'The Library of Original Sources**

A revival of more active enthusiasm for "TTic Library of Original
Sources" is one of the imperative needs of radicalism in the critical period
of today. This most monumental compilation of source material ever
made had a sale of many, many thousands a few years ago, and has
continued as a steady seller ever since. For the sake of the movement it
should, howe\er, be even more widely spread.

There are tens of thousands of new and young thinkers in the Socialist,
rationalist and labor movements who should be intimately familiar wtih
this bible of historical research. Ilie collection is nothing less than a
bible. Think of reading the message directly from the people in the de-
velopment of history — the history often purposely and nearly always mis-
represented in commentaries written centuries later. Read the source
material and interpret for yourselves.

"The Library of Original Sources" grew from the needs of college pro-
fessors for source material. Nothing comprehensive along this line had
ever been published in the world. So scores of the greatest scholars
labored for years to produce this fundamental collection. Ancient tablets
and monuments yielded their inscnptions. Manuscripts from libraries all
over the world, state archives and musty records yielded the cream of
the world's documentary evidence of historic progress of the ages.

The resulting series of ten large royal octavo volumes, bound in black
India sheepskin, has stood the test of years and stands today an unques-
tioned authority. I have heard it settle arguments in the college class-
room; have listened to its message from the lips of the soap-boxer, have
heard it quoted in park and street arguments on every side in city and
country in many states.

The illustrations are appropriate to the text and are in themselves
a liberal education.

The political and economic by no means exhaust the possibilities of the
library. Religious, social and every phase of human activity are treated
with an equal thoroughness as the economic. The set indeed constitutes
"a library," and the facts represent the cream of human documents of
every age.

Just a word to fasten this review to earth. The library can be secured
for about one-half its original price for a short time, on easy monthly
payments. Sounds like advertisement, dosn't it? Does the Mohammedan
"advertise" the Koran, or the Socialist the "Communist Manifesto"? The
"Library of Original Sources" is a world classic and beyond "advertising"
in the ordinary sense. My best propaganda is to stimulate interest in such
landmarks of progress. A syllabus and outline of readings is furnished
free with every set.

Page twenty-four

Women's Department

TKe Western Coi

A Pioneer Woman's View By MiNred g. Buxton

FTER all the spirit is the thing. At first the novelty
of the place — tent life, early rising, supplying the
wood and water — carried me over the hard places,
and as long as I could see the mirages in the early
morning and the glorious sunsets in the evenings, with the ever-
changing lights and colors on the Buttes north of the Colony
during the day, I was happy, lifted, carried out of myself and
away from such minor troubles as bodily fatigue and physical
discomforts.

A dreamer, you say? I admit it. All my life I have cul-
tivated my natural ability to lose myself for the time being
in the beauties of the universe about me. It is a sort of insu-
lation I carry against the too rude shocks and jars of life.
But let me also admit my extremely practical side lest you
misjudge me. For many weeks I worked in the dining room
and kitchen and a right good record did I make.

Here I began to feel that it was vitally necessary to work
out the co-operative commonwealth without delay. There
were people who were so shut up within themselves that they
could not ask for what they wanted courteously or pleasantly;
nor did they demand what they wished, they merely watched
sullenly, and if one person was served a bit more in quantity
or more pleasantly than himself there was an immediate com-
plaint. This in spite of the fact that all the service was as
nearly equable as possible. Women came whose faces were
hard and bitter and who all but frowned if one washed them
a good morning in passing.

All of this was most puzzling at first until it dawned upon
me that these imprisoned souls were the direct result of the
capitalist system. So long had they been oppressed and de-
frauded that they felt each little oversight as a direct slight,
and they seemed to suspect each frendly word or smile as
presaging further exploitation.

Right then and there my heart and mind took such a firm
stand for co-operative living that it will last as long as time
lasts for me.

As Ruth LePrade says in her wonderful poem, "We cannot
mount alone," and in other places in the same poem, "As
long as one man is sorrowful and broken I, too, am sorrowful
and broken," "As long as one soul is weak I, too, am weak,"
"As long as one small child sobs in the night my heart will
answer, sobbing too."

This expressed my feeling clearly. Of what avail was all
the culture, all the knowledge, all the luxury or comfort I could
put into my own personal life while there were people in the
world so deeply hurt?

I knew then that I could never again work for myself alone
— even my single handed efforts for my own family would
never be enough henceforth.

Up to this point in my life my idea of helping humanity
had been by the charity route, but a course of several years
in that sort of work had thoroughly convinced me that charity
fails to solve social problems.

Humanity does not need uplifting. It needs a clear, sym-
pathetic understanding of its problems and then must follow,
so it seems to me, united effort, standing shoulder to shoulder
to work out the answer. Here in Llano I found this condition
and I was glad to turn in and help. By the time I realized
the ideals and the truly remarkable way the work was reacting
on individuals I was committed to it forever.

It is difficult, standing at the end of nearly two years' effort,

to trace the way step by step — but as I look about at my
friends who have developed and grown to spiritual heights
they would never have attained by working for themselves
alone — as I realize my own growth — I see how tremendously
worth while it is.

Take our situation from any angle you wish — and there
are many angles for a woman to consider that do not enter
into a man's calculation: A man may dream the big dreams
without considering the details that go into the everyday living
of them and it remains but for the woman to follow along.
She, too, may have a glimpse of the vision, but in the face
of the pioneer hardships it is a brave woman who can face
the personal discomforts.

We are all considerably bound by them, but, after all,
our foremothers faced them and came through royally and
brought up families that are a sufficient proof of the sterling
worth of these women. Have we modern women been so
weakened by our very comforts and luxuries that we have
no courage left upon which to live while we are working out
our great dream? Most other pioneer women had no such
dream to hearten them at their tasks. At best, their hope was
but to advance towards personal success. If personal success
is worth all the hardships the real pioneers had to endure —
how much more worth while is it to know that we shall gain
not only the personal success of a good home, a steady in-
come, good education for our children and a free, happy
social life, but that we are working out a basis or plan by
which all mankind can free itself so that all who are willing
to work may have the same advantages?

But to return to the personal side for the woman. We
women have a narrow outlook on life and are bounded on
at least three sides by pots and pans. More than any other
complaint I have heard this: "If I only had a sink and run-
ning water!" It is hard to do without such necessary luxuries
as these, but I decided not to let a sink or the lack thereof
bound me on the fourth side. That side must be kept free
and clear to enable me to see the vision and maintain an
open pathway to my ideals.

Always I had admired noble women , those I knew and those
I had read about who had struggled through hardships of one
sort and another to attain a desired end, and I had dreamed
vainly of the time when the children would be grown, the
household cares less depressing and I, too, could develop the
latent possibilities I felt within myself.

In Llano I began to rearrange my life in its proper relation
to my ideals. Housework has taken its proper place as a
means to an end and not as the end itself. Stories of people
living in tents in the desert or mountains had always held
an interest for me — their hardships and the spirit in which
they bore them were the measure of their triumph. Through
struggles with my weaknesses I came to realize that theirs
was no empty triumph. It isn't easy, but then, what real
success in life is easy? Many of us drift into our life's work
and make many changes as we go along. I choose to follow
the definite path of co-operation, the working out of the great
dream of mankind, equality and brotherhood.

Once the husband has decided upon a course to follow, the
woman must consider every question from two standpoints:
What will it do for my children? What will it do for myself?

In answer to the first it seems to me that Llano children
learn most valuable lessons about life and living. First, that

The Western Comrade

Women's Department

Page twenty-five

the greatest good for the greatest number is an important rule
in life. If the commissary were short, for instance, all would
share alike. Also they find that community interest is a real
thing and one not lightly to be disturbed. They learn, too,
that the service an individual renders to the community is the
measure of his worth and that he takes his own measure. No
amount of "front" avails one here — if we wish favors we must
earn them. In other words, we are valuable in proportion
to what we give to the colony, not in what we take from it,
as is the rule in the outside world.

I mention these things first because they have impressed me
as exceedingly valuable lessons for children to learn.

Then there is the matter of health. I have found over-
flowing measure for my children. And the snow-covered,
somewhat austere mountains to the south, the more friendly,
colorful Buttes on the north, with the misty blue Tehachapi
range in the distance, form an environment of grandeur and
natural beauty that cannot fail to react on the character
and imagination of the children.

There remains now the one question, as to the effect on
the woman herself. Our judgments are usually formed as a
result of our own experience, so perhaps I shall be pardoned
if I remain personal. I have believed from the first that the
women in this community have the opportunity to live closer
to their ideals than in any other place in the world. I still
believe it. The community ideals are a great help and there
is no reason why we women cannot begin here and now to
develop ourselves and our children as we have always dreamed
of doing. We shall not succeed at once and there vidll be
many times of depression when it seems too hard, but when

I stop to think I remember that these periods of depression
are not at all peculiar to Llano.

It seems to me that one's friends in the "outside world"
should be in about the same financial elevation as oneself,
other things being equal. In Llano, our plan of equal incomes
regulates that automatically and I believe that the time will
come very soon when such feelings as envy will be unknown.
And to a woman with limited means the heartache that comes
from constant association with women who have everything
in the world to do with is a serious matter and the little feeling
that comes with it almost excusable.

Let me tell you one more little decision of my own on the
personal side and I will stop. One of my earnest desires has
been to grow old gracefully. It hurts me to see women minc-
ing along aping the clothes and manners of young girls after
they have reached the thoroughly respectable and lovable age
of older women. I want to be young as long as I can, but
it must be the youth of the heart, and when the wrinkles
come I want them to be the sincere ones caused by earnest
thought and friendly smiles.

Perhaps the wrinkles come a bit sooner to women in Llano
than outside, but they are wrinkles of character and are sin-
cere records of our lives. Many persons have spoken of the
lack of worry lines in the faces of our people; the mask-like
face that hides all worries is not here, either, for the ordinary
worry that plays such havoc with a woman's good looks is
lacking. So I mean to convey that here we can show our
true character in our faces to the end, and, meeting honest,
kindly faces all around, it must follow that our own will take
on the beauty of earnest endeavor in a great cause.

For Women Only

OULD you like to have a pretty mouth? Of course
you would, and I am going to tell you how to get
one without paying a dollar down and a dollar a
month for the rest of your natural life.
I had always read, just as you have, that beauty is only
skin deep, and I took it in, as I always do those wise saws
that may or may not be true, and repeated it sagely when
I thought it sounded well. But I did not realize what it really
meant until I began to eat at cafeterias for a while; one
morning it dawned upon me that the muscles under the skin
have as much to do with our beauty as anything else and
that if they are properly trained the skin over them will sure-
ly take on some of the grace of the action properly performed.
Have you ever noticed the peculiar little pouches that form
at the sides of many mouths? Well, I did the morning that
I made the great discovery, and it was simply this: That

most people fill their mouths too full and in the effort to cover
it decently while they are masticating their food they draw
the muscles into an unnatural position that gradually results
in those horrid pouches that every woman dreads. When I
saw these mouths in action I tested it for myself, not once,
but many, many, times, and proved to my entire satisfaction
that it lies absolutely within the power of every women to
have a pretty mouth if she will take small bites of food and
chew them well. Try it. Look about you well, first at your
friends and enemies, then try the remedy and you will find
yourself on a track that will not only pay you handsome divi-
dends in the way of a pretty mouth, but the pleasure of eating
delicately will lend a refinement to the countenance; you can
converse more pleasantly and elegantly than when the mouth
is full ; and, lastly, you will eat less and feel much better,
thereby swatting the H. C. of L.

Left, a musical citizen of Llano. Other pictures show some recent arrivals at Llano. Those shown on the right are always seen together.

Page twenty-six

Co-operation

The Western Comrade

Industrial Education

By Clinton Bancroft

CLOSE observer of the educational activities of the
A past few years could not fail to have noted a ten-
Xm. dency on the part of private and independent edu-
cators to turn their attention more and more to tech-
nical trades and industrial occupations, rather than to litera-
ture, art and the professions. This has been largely in re-
sponse to a demand for such technical training from the
children of the poor, whose common school education was
left unfinished in the industrial struggle for existence. Under
these conditions the privately owned trades and correspon-
dence schools entered the educational field. Their special
function was to qualify the wage earner quickly for the higher
salaried positions in commercial and industrial occupations,
a rich field left practically untouched by the public schools.
They capitalized the function of the public school; but it
is always a notable fact that when private individuals under-
take to perform a public function for profit they seize first
upon that portion of it which promises the greatest revenue
to themselves and exploit it to the limit of the people's
patience. Dividing the educative energies of the nation into
two parts — one, the common school system, operated by the
public and supported by direct taxation; and one operated
by private interests, the business colleges, trades and cor-
respondence schools, supported by a schedule of tuition fees
— has resulted in a loss of potential energy to the former.
Private trades and correspondence schools operated for profit
in this age of our national life are as much an anachronism
as would be the farming out of taxes. But a public func-
tion improperly performed forces the people to undertake its
performance in their private capacity, and this opens the
door for the irresponsible exploiter.

The public school is many years behind the times in eco-
nomic thought and industrial teaching, although it cannot be
said to be a failure (as some have charged) so much in what
it has done as in what it has left undone. It was adapted to
the age in which it was first established (the wild ass days of
our forefathers in the Indian wars period), but its develop-
ment has not kept pace with the progress of science and in-
dustry. Practically speaking, it is where and what it was at
that time. This backward condition may be traced to the
fact that land necessary for industrial education has never
been provided for public school USE. Land was set aside
by the government in overflowing measure to support the
school system, but it was always sold to the credit of the
school fund and the money filtered back to the school through
the cupped fingers of political rings. The land itself was never
put under the direct control and use of the schools for
industrial-educational purposes and for the maintenance of
students and faculty. That there is a growing need for land
for the public schools for such purposes is manifesting itself
in the systemless and unsupervised offering of prizes to rural
students in many states for the best results in agricultural and
animal productions. It is the evolution of the public school
moving onward to its destiny; but in the movement, which
as yet seems only to be in the direction of more "efficient"
farming, capitalism and individualism are unconsciously sow-
ing the seed that will eventually overgrow and destroy them-
selves. The urban dweller, the landless student, however, does
not enjoy these privileges and benefits; and free access to
land, supervised industrial-education, and maintenance employ-
ment are three essentials to a complete educational system.

Today aspiring students without means to acquire a com-
plete education (a condition for which they are altogether
blameless, as their age and opportunities will show) , but whose
ambitions urge them to an active, industrial life, are expected
to find maintenance employment under the competitive wage
system, and, finding none, the result is undereducated workers.
Society (the government) in its public educational plan should
guarantee this maintenance employment to all during the
school period of their lives — to those with abundant means
as well as to those with none. Maintenance labor should be
required of all alike (of the rich as well as of the poor),
and none should be made to feel that it is due to poverty,
ignoble, or degrading, but that it is an essential part of their
education, health-insuring, mind-enriching and ennobling.

"But," says a reactionary political economist, "would you
have the public school system furnish employment and con-
tinue to educate the children of the poor until they were
qualified to fill any position in life they desired to occupy?
And how would land be acquired in sufficient quantity? Our
free school system would break down under such a strain
as that."

That is exactly what we would have it do. Nothing less.
Thomas Paine said, speaking of the people of his time: "A
long habit of NOT thinking a thing wrong gives it a super-
ficial appearance of being right and raises at first a great
commotion in defense of custom. But the tumult soon sub-
sides. Time makes more converts than reason." And for
society to leave a part of its young people to struggle with
the limited opportunities offered them under competition to
gain their education, and to permit a large part of the balance
to be educated in private schools operated for profit, is one of
those chronic habits of "not thinking a thing wrong" until age
has given it a "superficial appearance of being right." It is
now generally admitted that less than 10 per cent of all chil-
dren who enter school pass beyond the grammar grade. The
90 per cent consists chiefly of the children of the toiling
workers of the world. If education is good for the few, the
10 per cent, it is good for the many, the 90 per cent; and
the public school must measure up to such ethical standard
or fall far short of attaining its real educational power and
usefulness. Less than this would leave the system still in-
complete; nor would the school system break down. And
there is no "free school;" that is a misnomer; the people
pay for all the education their children receive, and under the
present wasteful methods and administration they do not re-
ceive in educational value all they pay for. Every individual
educated in the so-called "free school," who later in life pro-
duces that which adds to the wealth of the nation, repays
the public for his education. And a rightly educated people
is a social asset.

As to land: When there is a general demand for land
deemed necessary for school purposes, the people will find
ways and means to secure it. But suppose, as a beginning,
the states or the Congress should enact a simple law or con-
stitutional emendment to the effect that:

"Whenever any individual or corporation shall by gift,
bequest, grant, deed, or otherwise, convey to the State of

■ the title to any piece or tract of land for which

the purpose and consideration named in such conveyance shall
be declared to be Industrial Education and the Common Good,
such land shall thereafter become and be held to be the

The Western Comrade

Co-operation

ge twenty-seven

property of the school district in which it is situated, and shall
be subject to the control of the board of school directors.

"And such land shall not be sold thereafter."

There are many tracts of land today that would be given
or bequeathed to the public school if the owners were assured
that such land would be devoted to educational purposes only,
and not sold or diverted to private interest for profit.

Then suppose a Congress of Educators should organize a
non-dividend-paying corporation with the property holding
powers of a modern university, and that through such a re-
spionsible agency the people should raise funds and purchase
land in locations suitable for their plans, and, having cleared
the title and prepared the property for industrial-educational
purposes, the corporation should deed it to the state for the
common good whenever a majority of the people in the com-
munity interested should demonstrate by their choice of school
directors that they were ready and understandingly competent
to operate it successfully.

Suppose that, following the enactment of such a law, many
tracts of land should be given to the public schools and col-
leges generally throughout the United States for use in teach-
ing technical trades, agriculture and stock-raising for use, and
that all the products of these lands above the maintenance
and compensation of the students and workers should be de-
voted to extending the work and scope of the school, and to
the building of "free homes" for fatherless children and their
mothers on such land to be occupied by them during their
educational period.

Suppose these educational centers, with plenty of land for
practical purposes, should initiate a series of experiments in
co-operative home building by students learning the building
trades; in co-operative production and distribution of the
necessaries of life as an economic means to level the high
cost of living; in co-operative banking and exchange and of
labor as the true basis of value of the money of the future, with
the purpose in view of determining what is the common good,
what is industrial justice, questions for the educational powers
of a great and wealthy nation to solve. Would it result un-
justly to any to have them answered?

Suppose villages and cities should grow around these edu-
cational centers with a new perspective of industrial life,
and that the Mothers of the land, to whom lawmaking powers
will soon be generally given, should determine that their chil-
dren should not be dwarfed and maimed and stunted in body
and intellect to satisfy corporate greed for profit, and should
then decree that no person under the age of twenty-one years
should be employed in factory, mill, mine, store or office
operated for private profit. What changes would be made
in the present order of industry, in thought, in system, in
laws, and in the administration of law and justice?

Ownership of productive land by the school, together with
cheap and rapid transportation, enjoyed by some communities,
would result in the geographical transformation of many dis-
tricts and the establishing of educational centers where the
chief occupation of the people would be educating the rising
generation and improving the race. The work of supplying
the people of these centers with a large part of the things
they daily needed would be conducted under the supervision
of the school as a part of its educational plan. Teachers and
students, all would practice daily what they taught and studied.
Under such regime all would work at least two or three hours
daily in some useful and productive occupation according to
age, strength and ambition. School hours would not be
observed with the tyrannous discipline of the past, the hours
of such service being credited to school attendance. School

life would thus be made an attractive pleasure to the pupil
instead of a perfunctory duty.

In the evolution of industry from capital-ownership to co-
operative ownership by the workers (from individualism to
Socialism), the lessons of service for the common good, of
the necessity for free access to land by the workers, of the
power and economy of co-operation, of the ethics of mutual
exchange of labor values, of industrial justice, of educational
freedom — all these will find a place in the curriculum of the
public school in time. But industrial education in trades
schools operated for profit is practically only the training of
wage slaves for capitalism to exploit. The ideals of industrial
life (freedom and justice to the workers) are not set forth
in their claims for patronage and are impossible of realization;

MEDICAL ATTENTION at Llano is a social service and is free to Llano
residents. Eventually this department will take in every school of healing.

whereas all ideals — educational, industrial, economic, social
and moral — are possible of realization to a people united upon
common ownership of land. But without it, in vain will the
lessons of social labor and social justice be pictured before
students who see but do not understand; in vain will the truths
and philosophy of Socialism fall on ears that hear but do not
comprehend. But this need not be. For now let the educators
and voluntary co-operators unite in a demand for Land for the
Public Schools, and join their lawmaking powers, their or-
ganizing powers and their labor (economic) power in a gen-
eral movement to secure it, and the school would solve the
problem of the conflicting interests of labor and capital, and
also many of the lesser social and economic problems that
perplex and vex humanity everywhere.

Page twenty-eight

Agriculture

The Western Comrade

Llano Soil and Water

By Wesley Zornes

THE soil in this portion of the Antelope Valley is cov-
ered with Joshua Yuccas, greasewood, sage and wild
buckwheat for the most part. The great solitary,

sentinel-like Yuccas, some of them hundreds of years

old, dot the plains below and the slope to the southward. They
are not deeply rooted and are easily pulled up. The grease-
wood is also light and easily cleared from the land. The sage
and buckwheat are what the bees feed on largely.

The process of clearing is simple. Four horses are hitched
to two long railroad rails, which they drag back and forth
over the field, effectually uprooting virtually all vegetation.
Four horses with a specially constructed brush rake string it in
long windrows, where it is burned. Thus with eight horses and
three men five acres can be cleared each day, the estimated
cost being about $4.00 an acre, though the actual cash cost
is much less than that. The land is worth, before clearing,
about $12.00 an acre, and the usual price for clearing is
$10.00 an acre.

The necessary work to level for cropping is perhaps less than
the average over the country; certainly it is not more. The
value of the land increases greatly from year to year by rea-
son of the work placed upon it. Those who come from prairie
countries do not at first realize the work that has been done
in Llano. They cannot visualize what has been done, and the
value that has thereby been added to the land.

The acreage available to Llano is practically without a limit.
To say we have a thousand acres, ten thousand acres, or
thirty thousand acres, is not giving a very clear idea. Only
when it has been seen can one realize the great extent, and
what a thousand acres really means.

Irrigation in Llano is being systematized wonderfully. Miles
of cobble and lime ditches are being constructed, and many

miles will be completed as time goes on. It is the easy, effici-
ent way of handling the water.

Irrigation specialists say that the easy slopes, the water
retentiveness of the soil, and the short ditches required because
of the nearness of the source of water supply, make it remark-
ably easy to irrigate the land here, compared with what irriga-
tion means in many places. The ditches are permanent. The
longest dirt ditch is only three miles, though longer ditches
than this will be necessary eventually. The cobble ditches, of
which the longest is half a mile, are a complete success, and
ultimately the ranch will be a network of these cobble and
lime ditches.

During the winter season the land is thoroughly soaked wiih
water. This makes it require less during the summer. Plans
are being worked out to conserve every drop of water. The
tunnel is being cleaned and will probably be extended, when
it will give a greater flow of water. This work will develop
a great deal of water and will be preliminary to the building
of the storage reservoir at the dam site, which will not be built
until absolutely required.

The soil is characterized as being of a residual formation;
it is of decayed granite and quartz, which disintegrated into
soil where they lay. The land is comparatively smooth with
a good grade from north to south. The quality is of the best
and, according to the agriculturists, will produce any crop that
the climate permits of being grov^Ti, though some soil building
is required for gardening and some other crops. There is
practically no limit to the depth of the soil. It is rich in lime
and different mineral salts and is greatly benefited by cultiva-
tion. It is of sufficient porosity and ranges from light sandy
soil to a sandy loam, holds water well, has almost perfect
drainage, and is easily worked as a whole.

The Thing in Itself (Continued from page 20)

"One cannot remember the name of every town."

"Where ya' goin'?"

"South, where the winters are warmer. I sleep in the open
and must guard my health."

"Why'nt you get a job somewhere 'n settle down, A strap-
pin' fellow like you?"

"The job, I have always with me. To settle as you say — "
his azure eyes deepened into v^nstfulness — "as to that I must
not because of my weakness."

"Drink or dope? You don't look it."

He shook his head.

"Women?"

Again he shook his head. "I throttled my passions when
I was twenty."

The marshal scratched his head. Here sure was a queer
nut! Interesting too!

"Well, what's your weakness, then? Laziness, I guess."

"I am prone to form binding ties. To love people. I move
always so that there will be no ties to woo me from my work."

"What's this work that you're always talkin' about. What
do ya do for a living?"

"Ah! It is the things that I must do for my living — to earn
my few handfuls of food, my shoes, my shirt, the warm clothes
that I must have to do my work — it is these things that tear
me from my work. It is deplorable that I must waste so much

time from my task, when I am thirty-seven, and ,at the most
have not more than fifty years in which to complete it."

"Well, what the devil is it?"

"Preparing my book."

"It must be a damn big book if it takes fifty years to
write it."

"Not more than a dozen pages. Truth is brief when once
discovered. I have assigned myself only five years in which
to write it. That gives me forty years longer to prepare it,
and five years to wait for my passing. With care, it will be
given me to live long."

"You sure look healthy. But ain't we all liable to accidents?"

"It is so. But still, who knows? I may be able to continue
beyond the transition."

"I guess he's one of them crazy spiritualists." This from
the "marvelous specimen."

"Whatcha' goin' to call your book?"

" 'The Thing in Itself.' "

"Some name, too," with a wink at his subordinate.

"It is indeed. But I am not so mad as to expect to grasp
more than one phase of it."

"Oh, you ain't, eh?"

He bowed his head. "Ah, no!" It will not burst upon me
in the splendor of its entirety. The humble devotion of a
million petty lives like mine would not be worthy of a reward
so matchless as that! But if I surrender to my purpose all

The Western Cor

Page twenty-nine

I hold most dear — love, fellowship, adulation, bodily comforts
— and endure this — " his blue eyes raising to the grinning
faces before him — "scorn, ridicule, misunderstanding, perse-
cution, loneliness — and still do not despair, still seek in all
humility and patience — then, then I shall have paid the price!

I shall not behold the Thing in Itself, but " his face was

suffused with a wonderful smile — "Its shadow will fall for
a single moment across me, and I shall know an ecstasy that
shall compensate for all. That is what I shall put into my
book of twelve pages, the flitting of the shadow of the Thing
in Itself."

Absorbed in thought he stood silent, then — "Gentlemen,
have you done with me? I wish to return to my work."

"Why, yes, I guess so, partner. You seem harmless enough.
But keep off of private property, or we'll run you in."

"And the razor? May I have it? It cost me a wasted day."

The marvelous specimen returned it with tolerant conde-
scension. "Here 'it is. Grandpa. Don't cut yourself. Hope
you finish the Thing-um-a-Bob. You better quit wastin' your
time lookin' at vines or you won't finish it."

"If I could find what makes the tendril seek its support
vAth such trembling eagerness instead of growing away from it,
I would almost know the Thing in Itself. I am searching among
the plants now. In ten years I begin to seek among humanity.
You may see me then."

The door closed softly. The marshal threw back his head.
" 'The Thing in Itself.' Some name ! Ha ! Ha ! "

And the marvelous specimen echoed, "Ha! Ha! He sure
is some nut ! Ho ! Ho ! "

Courage

By M r s. C. P. S t e t s o n

It takes great courage just to train
To modern service your ancestral brain ;
To lift the weight of did, unnumbered years.
Of dead men's habits, methods, and ideas;
To hold them back with one hand.
And with the other sustain the weak steps
Of a new thought.

It takes courage to bring your life up square
With the accepted thought and hold it there.
Resisting the inertia that drags it back
From new attempts to the old habit's track;
It is so easy to drift back, to sink.
So hard to live abreast of what you think.

It takes great courage to live where you belong
When other people think that you are wrong —
People you love and who love you, and whose
Approval is a pleasure you would choose.
To resist this pressure and succeed at length
In living your belief — Well, it takes strength

And courage, too. But what is courage

Save strength to help one face a pain foreseen —

Courage to resist the lifelong strain

Of setting yours against your grandsire's brain;

Dangerous risk of walking lone and free

Out of the easy paths that used to be?

But the Greatest Courage man has ever knowTi

Is daring to cut loose and think alone!

Dark as the unlit chambers of clear space

Where light shines back from unreflected face.

But to think new takes courage grave and grim

As led Columbus over the earth's rim.

It takes great love to train a human heart
To live beyond the others and apart.
A love that is not shallow is not small;
Is not for one or two, but for them all ;
A love that can wound love for its higher need,
A love that can leave love though the heart bleed;
A love that can lose love, family and friend.
And live steadfastly, loving to the end.

Wanted — A Comrade

to take over a thirty-acre ranch and provide for two old people
a few years, and have the farm for pay.

A little capital and good reference required.

Address: S. Whipple, R.F.D. No. I, Box 25, El Centro, Cal.

WANT JAN. 1914 COMRADE!

q The files in the office of the WESTERN COMRADE lack the
JANUARY, 1914, number. Anyone having a copy will please
communicate with the Western Comrade, Llano, Cal.

"Celebrating May Day at Llano"

The June WESTERN COMRADE will teil of the
May Day celebration which combined the third birth-
day of the Colony, the fifth birthday of the WESTERN
COMRADE and International Labor Day. It was
fittingly observed, and the photos will give a splen-
did idea of Llano social life.

There will be many other interesting things told
about the Llano del Rio Co-operative Colony as well
as articles of general interest, education, and Com-
rade Job Harriman's thought-begetting editorials.

Page thirty

The Western Coi

Llano Celebrated Achievement

M

Ad i t o r i a

ORE than the traditional ob-
servance of International La-
bor day was in the minds of
residents of Llano when they
celebrated May 1st.

It was the third birthday of Llano.
It was the fifth birthday of the
Western Comrade.

As to Llano — three years of achieve-
ment are behind her; a splendid fu-
ture lies ahead.

As to the Western Comrade — behind
is a clean record; no radical publica-
tion has such a radiant future.

The Western Comrade is steadily
gaining in circulation. And one of the
most significant facts is that nearly
every reader renews his subscription
when it expires.

The reason is a good one. The
Western Comrade tells him of the
things he wishes to know.

Each month it is hoped the Western
Comrade will become a more and more
interesting magazine. It should occupy
the foremost place in the radical field
today. It tells the story in which we
are all interested, the story of which no
other publication can tell.
THAT IS ACHIEVEMENT.
Facts are demanded today. Social-
ist theories are good, but the people
demand more. They want to know if
they will work. And we must answer
that question satisfactorily and direct-
ly. No evasion will do. We must cite
examples. Whether it is just or unjust
to ask us to do this, it is the question
asked of us, and we must meet it. We
have no other choice.

Has anyone ever asked you:

Can the workers manage indus-
try?
Will Socialism work?
Can you have a uniform wage

scale?
Who'll do the dirty work?

1 by the Circulation

How will the people take over the

industries ?
Won't a few gain control ?
And the objections are:

You can't have common owner-
ship of land.
You can't work a ranch on an

eight-hour day.
You've got to have a boss.
Socialism destroys the home.
There'll be no incentive.
You've heard lots more of them.
Heretofore you've had to answer with
theories. Llano furnishes facts. Llano
is constructive, practical, growing, vir-
ile, young. Llano people have learned
much in the three years they have been
practicing the theories of Socialism.
They answer every objection, every
question.

The Western Comrade and the
Llano Colonist tell about what is being
done. They show how co-operation
succeeds. They tell of accomplish-
ment. And it is because of this that
the Llano Publications have grown.

Straight-from-the-shoulder Socialism
they teach, the pure, unadulterated
article. Yet they do not call names,
do not indulge in bitter criticism, do
not participate in party disputes.

The Llano gardens are an example
in concrete Socialism. So are the
printing department, the cannery, the
dairy, and every other institution in
Llano. As little lessons in Socialism
they are unparalleled. You can interest
anyone in such lessons as these.

Socialists have looked forward to
the coming of the Co-operative Com-
monwealth. They have prophesied
much from it.

They said it would take care of the
orphaned, the aged, the sick.
Llano does that.

They said it would provide employ-
ment for all.
Llano does that.

Manager

They said it would give old age and
mothers' pensions.

Llano does that.

They said it would bring hope to
people.

Llano does that.

The things that Socialists dreamed
of, worked for, voted for, agitated for
— these are being achieved in Llano.

Every reader of the Western Com-
rade should help to spread an interest
in Socialism. You can interest your
friends, your neighbors, your work-
mates, your associates, even your em-
ployer, when you can show literature
telling of the achievements of these
principles.

The COLONIST and the COM-
RADE do this.

The triumphs of the principles you
believe in depend on the education of
the people. There are no better me-
diums for this than the Llano Pub-
lications.

Will you get one additional reader
this month?

It is asking little of you, but it is
asking you to do what you believe is
right. We must have your help. We
must spread the news of "Co-opera-
tion in Action."

The COMRADE has grown, so has
the COLONIST. But they must grow
more and more rapidly. Already they
wield an influence greater than any
other papers, proportionate to their
size.

Will you help make them more in-
fluential?

The COLONIST is 50c a year, or
$1.00 for a club of three. The COM-
RADE is 75c a year, or 50c in clubs
of four or more.

Both to one address are $1.00 a
year or 75c in clubs of four or more.

Canadian rates are $1.00 a year for
either the COMRADE or the COLON-
IST. No club rates apply outside of
the United States.

The Western Comrade

rage thirty-one

I Need $10,000

TO ENLARGE MY RAPIDLY GROWING BUSINESS

My business is a standard, conservatively managed business.
It has been established about five years. It is growing so
rapidly that in order to keep up with the increased demand
I must have larger equipment throughout. This requires an
inmiediate outlay of capital.

There is every prospect that WITHIN FIVE YEARS IT WILL
BE THE LARGEST BUSINESS OF ITS KIND IN THE UNITED
STATES.

The product in one line has been multiplied by three in use
last ten months; a newly established line has gro%vn amazingly.

I have had to turn away a great deal of profitable business
because my equipment has been inadequate to handle this new
business.

I am a Socialist. I want to borrow this capital from
Socialists.

I CAN GIVE FIRST CLASS SECURITY.

I estimate that $10,000 will equip a new plant completely.
The money will be used for this purpose.

I want to borrow it either in a lump sum or in smaller sums.

Have you a small sum you>wish to invest where it will be
used by a comrade, and where it will be well protected?

Write me for full details, and let me know what sum you will
loan if the security is satisfactory to you.

Please address: John D. McGregor, care of Western Qimrade,
Llano, California. — Advertisement

About Manuscripts

Only typewritten material or that written with ink will be given
consideration.

Please put your name and address and date on manuscripts.

The WESTERN COMRADE does not pay cash at present.

Please state if you desire return of manuscript.

The COMFIADE is always glad to consider contributions, but nothing
of a controversial nature will be printed.

What Are You Good For?

Did you ever try to find out?

Are you employed at work for which you are best fitted?

Do you KNOW or are you GUESSING?

Your children --what will you advise them to do?

The science of Character Analysis will answer the questions you have
asked yourself. It is not fortune telling. It is not guess work. It tells you
what you are fitted for and gives you the reasons. It tells you why
you have not succeded in what you have attempted and will show you in
which lines you can hope to succeed.

An analysis of yourself will cost you something and it is worth many
times what it costs; but information about it — that is free. Just write:
"Send me free information about Character Analysis and Vocational Fit-
ness." Write your name and address \'ery plainly. Send it lo :
P. 0. Box 153, Llano, California

California Lands or Government Lands

"NEW OPENINGS DIFFERENT COUNTIES AND STATES"

FREE booklet, telling of your nine rights, eight without residence.
Special circulars, how, why, and where, of overlooked or covered up
bargains; all counties, some near you. Write:

Joseph Clark, Searcher of Government and State Records
1511 K St, Sacramento.

Telephone Home A-4533

HARRIMAN

S LEVIN

Attorneys al

Law

921

Higgiiu

Building

u.

Angelet,

CL

Law Book Free

O TUDY LAW, and become the man of power in your com-
*^ munity. The farmers of North Dakota captured the State
Government, and found that ihey needed law-trained men in
office to fight the big interests which have their lawyers in the
Legislature to make their laws, and in the Courts lo defend
and interpret them. There are opportunities awaiting YOU.
Get ready for them — study Law at home in your spare time.
We prepare you for the Bar examination. Guarantee bond for
refund of money if dissatisfied. Degree of LL. B. conferred.
Hundreds of successful students enrolled. Fourtcen-volume Law
Library upon enrollment. Low cost — easy terms. Be indepen-
dent. Be a Leader. Write today for free law book — "Law and
the People."

THE PEOPLE'S COLLEGE, Dept. D,
FORT SCOTT, KANSAS.

Reduced Freight Rates

on Shipments of

Household Goods

from all Eastern points

to California

Members of the Llano del Rio Colony will find it especially
advantageous to make their shipmenb through the

JUDSON Freight Forwarding Co.

443 Marquette bldg, Chicago; 324 Whitehall bldg. New York;
640 Old South bldg, Boston; 435 Oliver bldg. Pittsburg; 1537
Boatmen's Bank bldg, St. Louis; 518 Central bldg. Los Angeles;
855 Monadnock bldg, San Francisco. WRITE NEAREST OFFICE.

1 Can You Reduce Weight? i

M Information regarding my Obesity Treatments is contained in a =

M little booklet and consists of fully explained systems of dieting, exer- =

P cises. bathing, manipulative movements, and various other essentials g

M to effect the desired results. Persistency in this common sense and ^

M proved treatment will surely bring results in your case as it has in ^

= others. No drugs are used; it is a natural and beneficial way ot g

M reducing flesh. It gives full details for daily conduct. In sending M

= remittances, state what portion you particularly wish to have re- g

M duced and emphasis will be given as lo what treatments will prove M

M most beneficial. M

1 Full $5.00 Treatments, $3.00 Mrs. C. M. Williams, Llano, Cal. g

Illlll]tlll1llllllll!llll!ll1lllllilllillllltl1i!lllt!lliill1llllilllli>lllii'llilllllll^

CLASSIFIED ADS

Rates: 25c a line for one insertion; 15c a line thereafter. Twelve words
to the line. Advertising payable in advance.

WANTED— GAS ENGINES, 6 TO 12 H. P. STATE MODEL. DESIGN,
name, age, condition, and give full description. WESTERN COMRADE.

FOR SALE.— BREEDING RABBITS. BELGIANS. NEW ZEALANDS, AND
Flemish Giants. We can supply all ages up to eight months. For further
information address Rabbit Department, Llano del Rio G>lony, Llano, Cal,

Three Years of Growth

Are Back of The Llano del Rio Colony

Thirty-six months of unprecedented success and prodigious growth is the record that the Llano del
Rio Colony can point to. Never before in the history of the co-operative movement has such splendid
progress been made. It is a record justly to be proud of and the success has been fairly earned. The
Llano del Rio Colony is on a safe and sane footing; its growth and progress will be even more remarkable
during the years to come.

LLANO OWNS

Printery

LLANO MAKES

Bread

Shoe Shop

Overalls

Laundry

OTC^n A ^ M^^

Shirts

Commissary
Bakery
Cannery
Tannery

^750 Acres

This great tract of land was added to the hold-

Canvas Gloves

Butter

Leather

Soap

Rugs

Creamery

Magazine
Newspaper

ings of the Colony just recently. It lies in the

LLANO HAS—

fertile San Joaquin VcJley and is splendid fruit

Library

Saw Mill

land. Every member of the Llano del Rio Colony,

Montessori School
Orchestras

Lime Kiln
Dairy

resident or installment member, profits by the add-

Two Hotels

Hogs

ed acreage. It strikingly marks the growth of

GIVES FREE—

Alfalfa

Orchards

Gardens

the Llano del Rio Co-operative Colony.

(See pages 16 and 17 this issue Western Comrade)

Medical Attendance
Doctor's Services
Entertainments

Rabbit ry

Rent

Stock Ranges
Machine Shop

Baths
Dances

Have You the Spirit of Co-operation?

Have you, who have voted for the co-operative
commonwealth, who have talked and agitated for
it and prayed that it might come in your time, who
have done your part to educate the world to its
benefits — have you the courage of your convic-
tions? Are you willing to unite with your com-
rades and MAKE it the huge success you have
dreamed of? The hardest of the fight is over. The
Colony is on a sound foundation now. The days
when it required the great sacrifices and the ut-
most courage are now past.

But the days of doing and the time of the
greatest opportunity lie immediately ahead. Those

who have the foresight to get into the vanguard
of this great enterprise, who ,are willing and anx-
ious to get on to the firing line of the grandest
phase of the co-operative movement, who have the
spirit of the co-operative commonwealth strong
within them, can achieve and conquer. Workers
and thinkers are required. They will hz amply re-
warded, too, but the Llano del Rio Co-operative
Colony appeals to those who have VISION and
SPIRIT more than to those who are merely in-
terested in their own betterment. Will you join
with those who are making "Co-operation in Ac-
tion" a success?

SEND FOR THE "GATEWAY TO FREEDOM"

Llano del Rio Co-operative Colony

LLANO. CALIFORNIA

^„oTED toTh£~E^USe ~5ryjf^

^\-

Problem of the Boy 4

A Poem. By D. Bobspa.

May Day II

By Dr. John Dequer.

Efficiency 12

By L. W. Millsap, Jr.

The Socialist City. 14

By A. Constance Austin.

Making Wood Pulp for Paper 15

By R. A. Barber.

Was Schmidt Guilty? 16

Dearer Than Honor 18

Fiction. By Ethel Winger.

Forcing System in Farming 22

By Wesley Zornes.

News and Views in Agriculture 23

Co-operation the World Over 24

Reviews of Recent Readable Books 25

By D. Bobspa.

The Magazine of
"Co-operation in Action."

First American Conference for Democracy

and Terms of Peace Page 27

June

1917

10 Cents
a Copy

Llano's Third May Day By R^^t. k.

Williams

Pages 8, 9, 10

The Gateway To Freedom

Through Co-operative Action

^

THE LLANO DEL RIO CO-OPERATIVE COLONY is located in
the beautiful Antelope Valley, in the northeastern part of
Los Angeles County, Southern California. This plain lies
between the San Gabriel spur of the Sierra Madres on the south
and the Tehachapi range on the north. The Colony is on the north
slope of the San Gabriel range. It is almost midway between
Palmdale, on the Southern Pacific, and Victorville, on the Santa
Fe railroad.

The Llano del Rio Co-operative Colony is made up of persons
who believe in the application of the principles of co-operation
to the widest possible extent. Virtually all of the residents are
Socialists. It is a practical and convincing answer to those who
have scoffed at Socialist principles, who have said that "it won't
work," who have urged many fallacious arguments. In the three
years since it was established, the Colony has demonstrated thor-
oughly the soundness of its plan of operation and its theory. To-
day it is stronger than ever before in its history.

GENERAL INFORMATION

The Llano del Rio Colony is the greatest Community enterprise
ever attempted. It was founded by Job Harriman, May 1st. 1914,
and is solving the problem of disemployment and business failure.
It offers a way to provide for the future welfare of the workers
and their families.

An abundance of clear, sparkling water coming from mountain
springs is sufficient to irrigate thousands of fertile acres. The
climate is mild and delightful, the soil is fertile, and markets are
not far distant.

The Llano del Rio Colony is a horticultural, agricultural, and
stock-raising enterprise, with such manufacturing as will supply the
needs of the colonists, with perhaps something to sell when the
Colony has grown.

It is a perfect example of Co-operation in Action. No community
organized as it is, was ever established before.

The purpose is to solve the problem of unemployment by provid-
ing steady employment for the workers ; to assure safety and com-
fort for the future and for old age; to guarantee education for the
children in the best schools ; and to provide a social life amid sur-
roundings better than can be found in the competitive world.

It has more than 800 residents, making it the largest town in the
Antelope Valley. More than 200 children attend the schools. Part
of the children get meals at the school; some live at the Indus-
trial school all the time. The Montessori school is in operation,
taking the children from 2|/2 to 6 years of age. A new school
building is soon to be built on the new townsite. The County
school and the Colony Industrial schools are both in operation.

The Colony owns a fine herd of 125 Jersey and Holstein cattle,
100 head of young stock are on the range, being heifers and calves
up to 2 years of age. Over 100 head of horses and mules, in-
cluding colts, are owned by the Colony. These, with the tractors
and caterpillar engine, four trucks, and numerous autos, do the
hauling and the work on the land.

A recent purchase of Duroc-Jersey sows gives the Colony thirty-
eight registered high-class breeding sows and two splendid boars, the
nucleus of a great development along this line. Many new pens
have been built. Registration will be kept up and the raising of
fine hogs made one of the leading industries. There are also some
fine Berkshires, and a large number of grade sows.

Much nursery stock has been planted, a vineyard of 40 acres put
out, and many fruit trees set this spring. The Colony has more
than 400 acres of orchards.

Community gardening is successful, and an increased acreage
will be put in each year.

The ideal is to farm on an extensive scale, using all manner of
efficient labor saving machinery and methods, with expert and ex-
perienced men in charge of the different departments.

Llano possesses more than 668 stands of bees. They are cared
for by expert bee men of long experience. This department ex-
pects to have several thousand stands in a few years.

The Colony has secured timber from the San Gabriel Reserve,

and has a well equipped sawmill. Lumber worth $35 to $40 a thou-
sand costs the Colony only a few dollars a thousand.

Social life is delightful, baseball and football teams, dances, pic-
nics, swimming, hunting, camping, all being popular. A band, sev-
eral orchestras, a dramatic club, and other organizations assist in
making the social occasions enjoyable.

Alfalfa does extraordinarily well at Llano. Much has been plant-
ed and the acreage will be increased as rapidly as possible. Six
good cuttings a season can be depended on. Ditches lined with
cobblestone set in Llano lime, makmg them permanent, conserve
water and insure economy. They will be built as fast as possible.
A square mile has been set aside for the new city. With the
sawmill running, the lime kiln producing a very superior lime, and
with sand and rock abundant and adobe brick easily manufactured,
the time is near when permanent buildings will be erected on the
new site. It will be a city different in design from any other in the
world, with houses of a distinctively different architecture. Houses
will be comfortable, sanitary, handsome, home-like, modern, and
harmonious with their surroundings, and will insure greater privacy
than any other houses ever constructed. They are unique and de-
signed especially for Llano.

LLANO INDUSTRIES AND INSTITUTIONS

Among the industries of Llano, lo which new ones are con-
stantly being added, are: Prinlshop, shoe shop, laundry, cannery,
cleaning and dyeing, warehouse, machine shop, blacksmith shop,
rug works, planing mill, paint shop, lime kiln, saw mill, dairy, cab-
inet shop, nursery, alfalfa, orchards, rabbitry, gardens, hog raising,
lumbering, publishing, transportation (autos, trucks, tractors), doc-
tors' offices, woodyard, vinegar works, bakery, fish hatchery, bar-
ber shop, dairy goats, baths, swimming pool, studios, two hotels,
drafting room, post office, commissary, camping ground. Industrial
school, grammar school, Montessori school, commercial classes, li-
brary, women's exchange, two weekly dances, brass band, mandolin
club, two orchestras, quartets, socialist local, jeweler.

COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT

THE LLANO DEL RIO COMMUNITY has a remarkable form
of management that is the result of evolution. The manage-
ment of the affairs of the Colony industries is in the hands of
the department managers. In each department there are divisions.
Over some of these divisions are foremen. All these are selected
for their experience and fitness for the position. At the department
meetings as many persons as can crowd m the room are always
present. These meetings are held regularly and they are unique
in that no motions are ever made, no resolutions adopted and no
minutes are kept. The last action on any matter supercedes aU
former action and this stands until the plans are changed. The
plan is working most admirably and smoothly. At these meetings the
work is discussed and planned, reports are given, teams allotted,
workers are shifted to the point where the needs are greatest,
and machinery is put on designated work, transportation is ar-
ranged, wants are made known and filled as nearly as possible.
The board of directors, members of which are elected by the
stockholders, meets once a week and has charge of the financial
and business management of the enterprise. These directors are
on the same basis as all their comrades in the colony. At the
general assembly all persons over eighteen years of age, residing
in the colony, have a voice and vote.

NO CONSTITUTION OR BY-LAWS

MANY persons who want to know how the affairs of the
Llano del Rio Community are conducted think, in order to
gel this information, they must secure a copy of a con-
stitution and by-laws. There is no constitution. The Llano Com-
munity contents itself with a "declaration of principles" which is
printed below. The management of the Colony rests with the
board of managers, a member of which is the superintendent
and his two assistants. These managers are selected for their
fitness and ability. The business and financial affeiirs of the enter-

s'

/7^

prise are conducted by the board of directors who are elected by
the stockholders, TKe corporation by-laws are the stereotyped cor-
poration by-laws of almost every state. The only innovation is in
the restricting of anyone from voting more than 2000 shares of
stock, regardless of how many shares are held. As this is to be
the ultimate holding of every member, this is considered a strong
protective clause. The incorporation charter is also the usual type
and gives the corporation the right to transact almost all manner
of business. The Nevada corporation laws are liberal, safe, and
well construed. There is no disposition on the part of state
ofHcials to interfere.

DECLAfUTION OF PRINCIPLES

IN conducting the affairs of the Llano del Rio Community it
has been found that the fewer inflexible rules and regulations
the greater the harmony. Instead of an elaborate constitution
and a set of laws the colonists have a Declaration of Principles
and they live up to the spirit of them. The declaration follows:

Things which are used productively must be owned collectively.

The rights of the Community shall be paramount over those of
any individual.

Liberty of action is only permissible when it does not restrict
the liberty of another.

Law is a restriction of liberty and is only just when operating
for the benefit of the Community at large.

Values created by the Community shall be vested in the Com-
munity alone. »

The individual is not justly entitled to more land than is suffi-
cient to satisfy a reasonable desire for peace and rest. Productive
land held for profit shall not be held by private ownership.

Talent and intelligence are gifts which should rightly be used
in the service of others. The development of these by education
is the gift of the Community to the individual, and the exercise of
greater ability entitles none to the false rewards of greater pos-
sessions, but only to the joy of greater service to others.

Only by identifying his interests and pleasures with those of
others can man find real happiness.

The duty of the individual to the Community is to develop ability
to the greatest degree possible by availing himself of all educational
facilities and to devote the whole extent of that ability to the
service of all.

The duty of the Community to the individual is to administer
justice, to eliminate greed and selfishness, to educate all and to aid
any in time of age or misfortune.

LLANO OFFERS YOU ESCAPE FROM—

THE electric light bill, the water bill, the doctor's bill, the drug
bill, the telephone bill, the gas bill, the coal bill, the dentist's
bill, the school book supplies bill, the sewer assessment bill,
and car fare, the annoyance of the back door peddler and beggar
(Henry Dubbs who think the trouble is individual hard luck),
the hundred and one greater and smaller burdens on the house-
holder, and the lean weeks caused by disemployment and the con-
sequent fear of the future. There is no landlord and no rent 'r
charged.

While they are charged with living expenses, for food and cloth-
ing, the colonists never fear meeting the grocery bill, the milk,
the clothing bill, the laundry bill, the butcher's bill, and other
inevitable and multitudinous bills that burden the struggling workers
in the outside world. For the tax bill he has no fear. The colony
officials attend to the details of all overhead. To colonists the
amusements, sports, pastimes, dances, entertainments and all edu-
cational facilities are free.

IMPORTANT QUESTIONS ANSWERED

WHEN a member of the colony dies his shares and credits
like any other properly, go to his heirs. Only Caucasians
are admitted. We have had applications from Negroes,
Hindus, Mongolians and Malays. The rejection of these applica-
tions Is not due to race prejudice but because it is not deemed
expedient to mix races in these communities.

Llano is twenty miles from Palmdale, on the Southern Pacific
Railroad. All household goods and other shipments should be
consigned to the name of the owner, Palmdale, California, care
Llano Colony. Goods will be looked after by the colony freightman
until ordered moved to Llano. All shipments should be pre-
paid, otherwise they cannot be moved and storage or demurrage
may be charged. Freight transportation between the colony and
the station is by means of auto trucks. Passengers are carried
in the coIony*s auto stages. In shipping household goods* it will

be well to ship only lighter goods. Cookstoves, refrigerators and
heavy articles should not be shipped from points where freight
rates are high.

Individuals may own their own automobiles and many colonists
do own them. All livestock, poultry, etc., are kept in the depart-
ments devoted to those industries. The aim is to keep the resi-
dence portion of the colony clean and sanitary.

SOUND FINANCING NECESSARY

PERSONS cannot be admitted to residence at the colony upon
the payment of $ 1 0.00 or any other sum less than the
initial payment fee. Hundreds write and suggest they be al-
lowed to pay a small amount, or in some cases, nothing at all,
then enter the colony and work out the remainder of their shares.
If the colony permitted this there would soon be a hundred thou-
sand applications.

The money derived from these initial payments is used to pay
for land, improvements, machinery, and to carry on the enterprise
until it is on a paying basis. It takes considerable time to bring
a large agricultural undertaking to a productive point. The colony
must proceed along sound financial lines in order to continue its
present success. This fact must be obvious to all. The manage-
ment of the Llano del Rio Community has never been unmindful
of the fact that there is a numberless army that cannot take
advantage of this plan of co-operation. Many letters come in
that breathe bitter and deep disappointment. No one could regret
this more than we do. It is our hope that the day will come
when successful co-operative groups can say to their stripped, rob-
bed and exploited brothers: "You who come with willing hands
and understanding of comradeship and co-operation are welcome."

Tlie installment plan of payment whereby one pays $10.00 a
month is proving satisfactory. On this plan the absent comrade
is providing for the future while his brothers and sisters on the
land are bearing the brunt of the pioneering. Families entering
the colony begin to draw from the commissary. Some of the food,
all the clothing, much of the material they draw, costs money.
The initial membership fee goes to offset the support of families
until the colony shall be on a paying basis.

PLAN OF ORGANIZATION

Following is the plan which has pi oven successful: Each share-
holder agrees to buy 2,000 shares of capital stock. Each pays
in cash or installments, $1,000. Each pays in labor, $1,000. Each
receives a daily wage of $4.00, from which is deducted $1.00 for
the stock he is working out. From the remainder comes his living
expenses. Whatever margin he may have above deduction for stock
and living expenses is credited to his individual account, payable out
of the surplus profits of the enterprise. If an installment member
falls ill, is disabled or disemployed, the Colony gives him every op-
portunity to recover and resume payments. In no case will he be
crowded. If he finds it impossible to resume payments, we will,
upon request, issue stock for the full amount he has paid. This is
transferable and may be sold to his best advantage. In this we will
endeavor to assist wherever practicable. Corporations are not
allowed by law to deal in their own stock.

HOW TO JOIN

Write today for an application blank, fill it out and send
together with a remittance of $10 or more to secure your member-
ship. You can then arrange to pay $10 a month or more until
you can so adjust your affairs that you can make final pay-
ment and join your comrades who have already borne the first
brunt of pioneering.

Address Communications regarding membership, general informa-
tion, etc., to the

MEMBERSHIP DEPARTMENT, LLANO DEL RIO COMPANY,
LLANO, CALIFORNIA

Read of Llano in the LLANO COLONIST, the weekly paper telling
in detail of what is being achieved, giving an intimate peep into
the daily lives, the smaller incidents of this growing, thriving in-
stitution.

Read, loo, the WESTERN COMRADE, the illustrated monthly
magazine, giving more complete articles concerning the Colony,
showing photos illustrating its growth, etc. The editorials, and
many other special features, are making it one of the leading
Socialist magazines of today.

For subscriptions to the Publications, changes of address, etc.,
please write

THE LLANO PUBLICATIONS
LLANO, CALIFORNIA

Problem of the Boy

By D. Bobspa

I SEEK solution of a problem.
Given Heredity plus Environment,
I would plot the eccentric curve
Of the unknown quantity,
B-O-Y.

See how the shuttles of Fate

Play hide and seek

In interplay

Of forces varied to produce

The boy.

What of Heredity,
The long-stretched lines
Of the warp.
Gift of the misty past to
The boy?

What of environment.
The complicated maze
Of the woof
Potent in moulding
The boy?

A tired mother,
Working and exhausted.
Pauses from her busy duties
To give joyless birth to
The boy.

Hungry and tired.

He is born into the world.

The infant.

Still underfed, grows into

The boy.

Hopes and longings

Burn in that abysmal home.

And bright pictures of the future

Steadfast beckon to

The boy.

School days are happy.
In spite of poverty.

For, toiling through the mire,
Hope still rules
The boy.

The workshop claims him
And school days are over.
As Mammon's jaws open wide
To receive its sacrifice — ■
The boy.

Society approves the crime
(On greater profits bent).
While you and I stand condemned
For the murder of
The boy.

His Heredity: the son

Of all the ages.

The blood of earth's best workers

Coursing the veins of

The boy.

His environment sordid
Wove a sorry figure through
The warp, giving sad answer
To my problem of
The boy.

"Plus Environment."
Here the problem, then.
Must start for
The saving of
The boy.

From to-day's environment
Springs the heredity
Of to-morrow
That will strengthen
The boy.

A free earth

Where mothers will be able
To laugh and grow strong
To endow with his birthright
The boy.

Political Action

Co-operation

Direct Action

The Western Comrade

Devoted to the Cause of the Workers

Entered as second-class mailer November 4th, 1916, at the post office at Llano, California, under Act of March 3, 1879.

PUBLISHED EACH MONTH AT LLANO, CALIFORNIA.
JOB HARRIMAN Managing Editor. «^p» 7 FRANK E. WOLFE Editor.

Subscription Rate — 75c a year; Canada $1. Single Copies 10c; clubs of 4 or mora (in U. S.) 50c. Combination with LLANO COLONIST $1.
Publishers and others are invited to copy at will from the WESTERN COMRADE, but are asked to give credit. Nothing copyrighted unless so stated.
In making change of address always give your former one so that the mailing department may be certain that the right name is being changed.

VOL. V.

LLANO, CALIFORNIA, JUNE, 1917

No. 2

Editorials «

Job Harriman

A NOTHER convention is now called, to be held in New
■**■ York May 30. The call is issued to Socialist, Labor,
peace, religious and political organizations. Favorable re-
sponse is coming in from all parts. Evidently the majority
report of the Socialist convention has not become a rallying
point for the American people.

Many of those who signed and two of those who drafted
the majority report of the Socialist party convention signed
the call on the following program. This proves the folly of
the majority and the w^isdom of the minority report:

PREAMBLE. — United in our love for America we are convinced
that we can best serve our country by urging upon our countrymen
the adoption of the following program:

1 . PEACE. — The conference favors a speedy and universal peace
in harmony with the principles outlined by the President of the
United States and by Revolutionary Russia, and endorsed sub-
stantially by the Social Democratic organizations of Italy, France,
Germany and Austria and the liberal and democratic forces of
England and other countries, namely :

(a) No forcible annexation of territory.

(b) No punitive indemnities.

(c) Free development of all nations.

We favor all steps leading to international reorganization for the
inalntenance of peace based upon the principle of obligatory ad-
judication of disputes among nations, disarmament, neutralization
of the great waterways, trading on equal terms between all nations,
and protection of small nations.

We urge the government of the United States immediately to
announce its war aims in definite and concrete terms upon the
above principles and to make efforts to induce the Allied countries
to make similar declarations, thus informing our public for what
concrete objects they are called upon to fight and forcing a definite
expression of war aims on the part of the Central Powers.

We demand that this country shall make peace the moment its
announced aims shall have been achieved without waiting for the
territorial ambitions of the belligerents to be realized. We further
demand that it shall make no agreement with other governments
limiting its power so to do or any agreement or understanding
looking toward an economic war after the war.

2. DEMOCRACY.— The Conference pledges itself:

(a) To oppose all laws for compulsory military training and
service.

(b) To upfrold freedom of conscience and to support conscien-
tious objectors.

(c) To defend the constitutional rights of freedom of speech,
press and assemblage during the war.

(d) To work for the democratization of the diplomacy of the
United States, including the principle of the referendum on declara-
tions of war, and upon concluding alliances with foreign nations.

3. ECONOMIC POLICIES.-(a) The Conference is opposed to

the nullification er suspension of progressive labor legislation during
the war; to the suspension or curtailment of the rights of the
working class.

(b) It demands that none of the revenue required for the
prosecution of the war shall come from taxation of the necessaries
of life, but that all war funds shall be raised by heavy taxation
upon profits of war industries, by a heavy and progressive income
tax, and by federal inheritance taxes.

It is to be hoped that this convention will give issue to a
constructive program. The forces of decay are already at
work in the heart of capitalism. It is our mission to aid in
the birth of the new order. Socialism, the legitimate child of
capitalism, is struggling, this moment, to escape from the
womb. The thing to do during the war, is the all-important
question.

We cannot resist the inevitable, but we can so take advan-
tage that our influence will be felt far and wide.

As a program for this convention, we propose the follow-
ing:

DOMESTIC POLICY.

1 . The municipal, state and government owTiership and
control of all natural resources and productive industries.

2. Universal suffrage.

3. Free speech and free press.

4. Popular vote on declaration of war.

5. Conscription of all incomes and inheritances.

6. Conscription of all men and women for industrial
army.

7. Increased pay for industrial workers.

8. Institutions for the industrially incapable.

FOREIGN POLICY.

1 . Speedy and universal peace.

2. No indemnities.

3. No annexations.

4. No foreign alliances.

5. Complete disarmament of nations.

6. Compulsory international arbitration.

7. United States of the World and International
World Parliament.

8. Open door for all nations to the sea.

The new order will submerge property and elevate human-

Editorial

The Western Comrade

ity. In it the mountain peaks of special privilege will be
leveled to equal opportunity, and the power and influence of
man will depend upon his own genius and ability. The hour
has come when man will be man and nothing more.

This war was started by the rich. It will be ended by the
poor. In the past the few could be and were inhuman to the
many; in the future, the many cannot be inhuman to the few.

The masses are irresistible. The arms of the world are in
their hands. The governments of the world are conscripting
the poor and supplying them with the machinery of war.
Under the pressure of hunger, the poor will assume the con-
trol of the machinery of government.

We were opposed to this country entering the war. But
we have entered. Now we have not power to oppose con-
scription, and soon the government may not have the power
to resist the fruits of conscription.

Commercial and financial necessity forced our government
to take up arms.

Efficiency will force government control of the resources
and the industries.

Hunger will force world peace, world disarmament, uni-
versal suffrage, universal labor, and the downfall of capi-
talism.

o

LITTLE do we dream of the task we have undertaken. We
have assumed the responsibility of feeding, financing and
manning a world-war with our base of supplies three thousand
miles from the field of battle. Between the battlefield and the
base of supplies lies a ravenous, insatiable ocean, fed by re-
lentless and untiring submarines.

Germany is yet the attacking party both in the East and in
the West. Not one battle of note has yet been fought on Ger-
man soil. How much more difficult it is to attack than it is
to defend, the Allies will learn when they move against Ger-
man forts and over German mines. Such a slaughter as has
never been known will come in those days.

Already 45,000,000 men have been lost, wounded and
killed. Over 7,00,000 have been killed.

We have sent Russia $1,000,000,000. She agrees to con-
tinue with the Allies to the end. The resources of the Allies
and the Central Powers are again about equally balanced, and
again will they pour their food, money and men into the
terrible vortex.

Meanwhile, each nation is seizing all the means of produc-
tion and is organizing all its men, women and children into a
productive army. Universal suffrage is rolling like a tidal
wave over all nations. With anguish of soul and a bleeding
heart, the world is trampling under foot its old idols and gods,
money and private property, and is creating a new god — the
sacredness of human life. In the future, humanity will worship
at this altar. This altar will be completed when the crowns
melt, the thrones decay, and when political suffrage and indus-
trial armies shall have grasped the earth.

/CONSCRIPTION! What does it mean to the rich, and
^^ what does it mean to the poor? Shall the rich be em-
balmed in their riches with the blood of the poor? Is not con-
scription the call of capitalism? Shall it call the worker and
leave the capitalist? Shall it call man and leave capital?
What is there in capital so sacred that it should not be called
to war? Shall we conscript human lives and leave incomes
and inheritances? Does the country belong to property or to
people? Shall property be preserved by bonded indebtedness
while the people are cast into the trenches to rot? In the eyes
of war and death, is one man better than another? Does not
death reduce all men to a common privilege — the tomb? Why,
then, shall their privileges differ in life?

Conscription? Why not conscript everybody and every-
thing?

Conscript all natural resources, all industries, all capital, all
incomes, and all inheritances.

Conscript every human being.

Everybody cannot go to war, but everybody can do some
useful thing.

Separate the rich from their wealth and make people of
them.

Unite the people in a common life, in a life of mutual in-
terest, and use the power of wealth to protect that life — and
war will be no more.

War is born out of the struggle for wealth, and not out of
the hatred of men.

Conscription of everybody and everything is the highway to
an early peace and an enduring civilization.

' I ' HEY tell us that we are in war. And, sure enough, we
•*■ are. But how did it happen? Who is responsible? Are
we quite sure that anybody is responsible? Does not the
majority report of the late Socialist convention state that the
war in Europe was "the logical outcome of the competitive-
capitalist system"? And that "the forces of capitalism are
even more hideously transparent in the war . . of this
country"?

Nobody, but EVERYBODY, who approves and supports
the capitalist system, is responsible. The blood of the nations
is upon every hand.

TVyfEN, money and food — these are the three necessities for
^^^^ a successful war.

Volunteer for certain death? The volunteer candidates for
that country whence no traveler returns are few. No men, no
army; no army, no war. But we are in war; hence CON-
SCRIPTION of men.

A liberty loan to the already bankrupt and defeated allied
nations from which no interest or principal may return? As
well expect a miser to feed a missionary as" a banker to back
a broken reed. No money, no munitions; no munitions, no

The Western Comrade

Editorial

rage seven

war! But we are in war; hence CONSCRIPTION of money.

At least, this war will bring money down to a level with
humanity.

Plenty of food and low prices, when the world wolf is
howling at our doors? As well expect a gourmand to dine on
delicacies as a capitalist system to glut its larder or check its
greed. High prices: intense activity. But high prices will
absorb the money. No money: no munitions. Low prices,
sluggish activity; sluggish activity, no food; no food, no war.
But we are in war; hence CONSCRIPTION of productive
resources.

Conscription of all productive resources!

Conscription of all men to operate the resources!

Conscription of all money for whatsoever purpose!

This is the only road to a successful war, and to an early
and lasting peace.

o

CAPITALISM is a monster. It is reeking with human gore.
It is an all-devouring cannibal. It devours the poor,
builds governments of their blood, and then devours the gov-
ernments. It develops greed for power in the hearts of men,
and crushes them with that power. It decays the hearts and
souls of men, and destroys them because they have not love.
It is a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal that resounds the
world around. Whosoever follows it will perish by its hand.
It is a serpent with a fang for every heart. Whosoever yields
to its alluring promises will be crushed in its coils. The path-
ways it makes lead finally to the trenches, to a decaying mass,
a putrid tomb.

o

THE May Western Comrade pointed out the danger of the
majority report of the St. Louis convention. Events
have justified the prophecy.

Not alone the danger to the party — though that is great
enough.

It is the danger to the members of the party who try to
carry out the admonition of the party press and the party
leaders to distribute generally the majority report of the con-
vention.

The May Comrade pointed out that the majority report
could easily be construed by government officials as being
seditious.

The "Milwaukee Leader" of May 19 carries the news of
the first fruits of this campaign of distribution of the majority
report.

United States authorities raided the headquarters of the
Socialist Party of Indiana and seized all literature bearing
on war.

The raid is thought to be directly traceable to a speech
made in the United States Senate by Senator Husting, of Wis-
consin. Senator Husting attacked the majority report on war
and militarism.

Socialists must remember that today their rights only e.x-
ist as official interpretation permits. Despotic powers have

been granted or have been usurped by over-zealous officials.

That the persons who formed the St. Louis convention were
indiscreet or that their judgment was not good has no bearing
on the case.

But that innocent and energetic Socialists, hating war and
the over-riding of liberty and rights, should distribute this
Majority Report is the concern of every Socialist.

Party members have been urged by those in whom they
have the utmost faith and confidence to give the greatest
possible circulation to the St. Louis majority report.

Without meaning to do so, those who drafted the report
are plotting the downfall of their comrades.

What has happened at Indianapolis may happen anywhere.
Public officials are empowered to stamp out anything they
may deem treasonable.

The public mind is inflamed.

The majority report contains statements that may easily be
interpreted as seditious.

Every Socialist who distributes this literature may subject
himself to the charge of treason.

Under date of May 25, Thomas W. Williams, State Secre-
tary of the Socialist Party of California, writes:

"I have been notified by the United States District Attorney's
office of Southern California that the circulation of the Ma-
jority Report is in contravention of recent Congressional
action and that the same would not be admissible to the mails
or for general circulation."

Not to oppose what we cannot help and what it is too late
to prevent, but to make the most of the opportunity for edu-
cating the people to the advantages of co-operation — this is the
course that can be pursued profitably by Socialists. The war is
not of our making, but we can take advantage of the oppor-
tunity it presents to push our propaganda and hasten the day
of the coming of Socialism.

o

IVT OW comes a long line of editorials in the daily press,
*■ " backed by "influential citizens," demanding that gambling
in foodstuffs be "prohibited during the war." Is it wrong,
then, to gamble in food in time of war and right in time of
peace? Is it possible that influential citizens do not use their
consciences in time of peace, reserving them for action in time
of war only? When hunger strikes society above the belt in
the region of the aristocracy, it seems to awaken "public con-
science." Conscience becomes terribly rusty when it is so
long between wars. How freaky a rusty conscience is, any-
way! Saving food to feed men to kill other men is a freak
of conscience that passeth all understanding. When gambling
in food raises prices in times of peace until the poor are
hungry, it is proof positive that the poor are shiftless and in-
dolent and should work longer hours. But if prices rise in
time of war until they annoyingly reach the rich, then gambling
is a "crime against God and man ! "

How fortunate it is for this poor world that the rich are
blessed with a keen conscience!

Page eight

About Llano

The Western Comrade

Llano's Third May Day By Robert K.winia

ms

MAY DAY dawned serene and bright. A spirit of an-
ticipation seemed to pervade the atmosphere. For
weeks May Day had been talked of and elaborate

preparations had been made. Visitors from many

parts of the state and from surrounding states had come to
spend May Day in Llano. Members not fully paid, and others,
visited the Colony for the first time and to enjoy the festiv-
ities of the day.

The first event of the day was the Pioneers' Parade. The
first comers to the Colony, with single team and one lone cow
in the rear, trudged along, representing the full quota of col-
onists and visible possessions of the Llano del Rio Colony
in 1914. Following the first pioneers came quite a procession
of arrivals of the year 1915. The line was headed, of course,
by the founder. Comrade Job Harriman, and as many others
of the original board of directors as were in the Colony for
the celebration. Cheers greeted the members of 1914 aud

Athletics at Llano on May Day, when a number of Llano athletes made
excellent records in outdoor sports

1915 as they passed in review. Something seemed to rise in
the throats of many as memories of the past surged up while
they waited the procession.

A tremendously affecting thing it is to witness a large body
of people doing the same thing at the same time. When one
realizes what this group of people are in Llano for, and what
the trudging group meant, a vision overcoming the hardships
of the past compensates for everything. After all, it's the
spirit that counts.

Athletics were held on the open road and some commend-
able performances were recorded. The standing jump, the
mile run, the broad jump and several other events were of
unusual record. One of the pathetic things of life is to wit-
ness "old timers" attempt to come back. Age creeps on us
so slowly and unconsciously, providing one is healthy, that
waning power is not suspected until the reserve is drawn upon,
and ageing muscles and reserve fail to respond. Some of us
who prided ourselves on our ability to jump and do other
feats of strength, agility and endurance, discover that in the
mad race for something to eat we have neglected to store
Nature's power, and when a test came we hit the ground
like a frog loaded with too many woolly worms.

For fear people may not know to whom I refer, and think
it is they that are referred to, I will state that one of my great-
est joys was to out-jump the other fellow. I'm afraid to men-
tion how far I used to jump, but of course it was some jump.
When I stood on the jumping board and looked at the best
mark I mentally commented on the lack of spring in the other
fellow. But, but — when I jumped! It was no less a mental
shock than a bodily one to discover that four or five feet had
been extracted from my record. However, one bright spot
remains. I beat one fellow, and it happended to be Assistant
Superintendent Kilmer.

Athletics continued during a great part of the day, and the
results are recorded elsewhere in the LLANO COLONIST, and
right proud will these vigorous fellows be in after years (when
our publications will run a column "Forty Years Ago Today")
when they discover some May Day their names shining forth
as stars of ancient magnitude. Perhaps forty years from now
they can sympathize, and appreciate my state of feelings now.

The crowd congregated within the spacious hall to hear the
speeches of the day. The hall was filled, as is usual, to
overflowing. Dr. John Dequer was the first speaker on the
list. His subject was "The Significance of May Day." Dr.
John IS an eloquent speaker, and it would be embarrassing
to him for me to tell what other people said about his speech,
but really it was inspiring, and the marvel to me is where the
deuce he learned all the stuff he told us, and how he ever ac-
quired the mellifluous flow of language. I know lots of people
twice as old as he is who don't know a quarter as much.
He touched lightly on the past and buiided on the future.
He told of the solidarity of labor and what May Day meant
and would continue to mean. His remarks were highly ap-
preciated, and prepared the audience to hear Comrade W. A.
Engle tell of the origin and history of the flag, what it stood
for and what it should stand for. Comrade Engle has been
with the Llano movement since its inception and has been a
close student of its affairs, being one of the board. He has
also been identified with the labor movement for years. Being
a public speaker, he acquainted himself with the lore of the
past and interested the large group with his intimate knowl-
edge of the flags of the ancients.

Comrade Job Harriman, the president of the company and
founder of the institution, arose amid applause and remarked
that, as the other speakers had gone into past and future,
he would confine himself to the present and tell of the things
done and doing. He gave a brief history of the Colony
and interested many newcomers and inspired them with an
even greater hope. Comrade Harriman has the happy faculty
of making things plain. Members arrive so frequently that
much of the history of the Colony is a closed book, and an
occasional rehearsing of the past keeps clear the difficulties
overcome and the plans entertained for the future.

When these wonderful speeches were going on I regretted
that I didn't have a memory as permanent and retentive as a
phonograph record. I am sorry that it is impossible to repeat
what was said, or to convey to you the mannerisms, the tones
used and the spirit that ebbed and flowed like a wave, as the
speakers played up and down the gamut of human emotions.
As the years pass, and the trials of the present become a
thing of historic and pleasant memory, those of us that were
permitted to hear these men will remember, and always with
a comparison in mind. You've always noticed that things of

The Western Comrade

About Llano

yesterday were better than those of today. I used to have a
pepper-and-salt suit that my sister gave to the missionaries,
which was the best suit of clothes I ever owned. No tailor
ever made such a good suit since. It's just the same with the
buckwheat cakes that Mother used to make. Llano of May
Day, 1917, will linger as a pleasant memory and no May Day
can ever again compare, no matter how big or how impressive
the following ceremonies will be. The first cow, of tender
memory, which the Colony owned is now spoken of with rev-
erence and adulation. Ancestor worship is easy of explana-
tion when one looks at things in the light of passing events.

At the conclusion of Comrade Harriman's spech the crowd
repaired to the grove north of the hotel and formed themselves
in lines to be served at the two places of refreshment with
barbecued meat and other eatables. Two converging lines of
people, each almost ten rods in length, filed past the serving
tables until after three o'clock. Colonists and visitors all en-
joyed the barbecue.

The Maypole dance, which was to be given in front of the
hotel, was transferred to the east side on accout of the west
wind, which made graceful dancing' difficult. The girls de-
serve great credit for the performance, which was witnessed
by a large circle of attentive lookers-on.

In the evening, promptly at 7:30 — Llano time — the Llano
Dramatic Company offered its special program — the farce com-
edy, "The Mishaps of Minerva" — -prepared for May Day. Ar-
rangements were made for a two-night stand, as the Assembly
Hall does not accomodate all who wish to attend, and there
were a hundred visitors in Llano for May Day. So it was de-
cided to repeat the show on Wednesday night and visitors were
given first rights on Tuesday night, the hall being well filled
on both nights, with ushers and doorkeepers handling the
big crowds.

The performance was so well given that it has since been
decided to offer it in the small towns of the valley. With
twelve amateur but well-trained actors in the cast, with the
Llano orchestra, with the stage lighted by electricity generated
by a steam engine rebuilt in Llano, the wiring and installation
done by Llano electricians and helpers, the stage built by Llano
carpenters, and the scenery arranged and painted by Llano
talent, the show could well be called a "home production."

The play was a two-act production, and the performers had
their parts so well that interest never flagged for a moment.
It was well handled throughout and made a decided hit.

The day finally concluded with the dance, the hall being
even more crowded with visitors and home people. Everyone
had a good time, and the third May Day celebration was voted
a greater success than any of the preceding ones.

There's a description of the May Day events and, after
glancing at it, I find it totally inadequate to express just exactly
what was put into the day. While we all enjoyed the parade,
the athletics, the addresses, the barbecue, the dance, yet there
is something more about the whole affair that is clear out of
reach. I can't express it. No use of me trying, and I don't
believe any one else can do full justice to the day. There's
a something about May Day that feels like a Fourth of July, a
Thanksgiving and a Christmas. The dearth and chill some-
times here and there, a sadness of joys and sorrows experi-
enced, and hopes and resolutions for the future of New Years,
are all combined in this day. When looking at the track events,
it is not merely a competitor we see; it is not the paraders in
the march we see when we see the winding cortege. It's
something else. It's the spirit that we feel, the something in-
tangible that weaves the universe about and binds human

Scenes at the barbecue on May Day, showing diners lining up at ihe
serving stands ; bottom, barbecuing the meat.

hearts and purposes human minds to a goal far beyond.

No use talking, there is a spirit in Llano that is unusual.
There is a community of interest that binds, and it is not
entirely economics. Powerful though the urge of economics
is, yet life is a hopeless morass without the sweet interchange
of human affection. Dollars and property cannot take the
place of heart throbs, and no callous connection of gold ever
ties a knot that holds.

Llano, indeed, stands for something else, quite something

Page ten

About Llano

The Western Comrade

else, than dollars and property and possessions. Dollars and
property and rights and titles are absolutely necessary for the
permanence of our existence, yet if we traded entirely alone
on this our movement would fail, and our living out here on
these pleasant slopes would be in vain.

The story of Llano must be told over and over again. Each
month sees new readers of our literature, and perhaps for the
first time in their lives a hope is thereby instilled. The unfor-
tunate part of it, however, is that many people read their
hopes into the lines. I am trying to reach the great mass of
people who have just heard of us but are not acquainted with
our movement, and make them see conditions as they exist. But
it's impossible. One man left a note for me when he left for
his home back East to "enter the treadmill," as he expressed
it, saying that the literature of Llano did not half express the
spirit or tell of the things done or the potentialities. This
made me feel good. Therefore it was some shock to listen to
a gentleman from the southern part of the state say: "I am
very much surprised. You haven't got anything done that I
can see. Three years' work! You haven't accomplished very
much."

Recently I met a man who lives fifteen miles from here. He
was here the first few months of the Colony's struggles. He
told me that he was astonished beyond measure at the devel-
opment shown. Really he ought to know what he's talking
about, for he has 1 60 acres and has but thirty cleared, while
our clearing runs into the hundreds. Another neighbor re-
marked that we surely had done a lot in three years. He said
he hadn't done very much in that time. A woman told me
the other day that she would die if she had to stay here a
month. Another woman, who went in the same party over the
ranch, said upon returning that she thought this was the great-
est place on earth and was going to return here as quickly as
possible.

The Colony is big enough and strong enough to stand up
under most any strain and can stand knocks as well as boosts.
While knocks and unpleasant things are not delightful, yet
they come with a certain welcome and helpfulness, for it keeps
us from getting overenthusiastic.

As for myself, I am enthusiastic over the future and present
possibilities of Llano. There are others here who are not as
enthusiastic as L There's a reason, of course. There's a rea-
son for most things. In the early struggles of any enterprise
every one cannot be expected to be happy and contented.
Our housing is not and has not been what we want. It's the
hope of better housing that keeps many of us enthused. Any-
way people are not constituted alike. I can eat most things.
Some are not so fortunate, and consequently marvel at my
internal arrangement. It just happens so, and I take no credit
for anything. If we have starch, I eat it. If we have some-
thing else, I eat that also, and say little about it. I was in the
commissary a few days ago and heard a woman give an order
for lard. We didn't have any. She wanted to know how
beans could be made palatable without fat pork. This ques-
tion disturbed her very much. It wasn't my problem, so I
could look on with amused tolerance. There are some who eat
to live and while eating live in the future. Some of us live
right now, every minute, and the big problem presents itself
three times a day. A man came with his family, and returned
to the city because he couldn't obtain eggs and cream at all
meals. So what is one's problem is of no moment to another,
but perhaps that other has a hobby on something else and is
as offensive as possible while dilating on his own likes and
dislikes.

Hope is a tremendous lever to raise oneself above the an-

noyances of life. One of the hard jobs is to create something
out of nothing. Few ever succeed at it. Llano comes nearer
succeeding at this particular job than anjfwhere else, at least
in this county. We started with nothing, and worse than noth-
ing — we were thousands and thousands in debt, wiih an organ-
ized world against us. We have lived and grown, perhaps not
fat; at any rate we have lived. The struggles have been hard.
We had to find men — men of tact and managing ability, and
men with vision. They are here, lots and lots of them, and
more will come. But, please, please, do not think Llano is a
ready-made heaven. It is not. There is work to do. Every
one with the intelligence of a mosquito knows that labor pro-
duces everything, and if they know and realize it, they should
know that all good things come to those who labor for them-
selves.

Llano is set in the midst of competition and it is still an
unexplained group. Under capitalism and while working for
the other fellow, it is generally known that the results of one's
labor goes, in most part, to the owner of the job. Here it is
not so. The results of labor in Llano, so long as it is pro-
ductive and constructive, 'go to the mass as a whole, and, in
proportion, to oneself. This is true. Once the labor here gets
on a self-supporting basis, the division of the proceeds will not
go to any small group, but to the group as a whole.

So far as I can see, the future of Llano lies in the soil and
its allied industries. I mean by this, farming and cattle or
live stock. There are many industries that will grow out of
Llano and be self-supporting as a separate entity, but the suc-
cess of the whole enterprise depends on land and water. The
land is here, as is well known; the water is here, too, not
merely according to my judgment, but according to the experi-
enced judgment of engineers. A visit to the fountain head of
the supply of water awakes a new hope in the breast of most
experienced men. However, this is not universally so. A man
came here not long ago who lived on the bank of a broad river.
He said we had no water. Of course not, in comparison with
the vast stream he was accustomed to.

A girl about thirty-two, I should judge, told me she was
accustomed to all the luxuries of the land. I was abashed.
I felt for a moment as if I was in the presence of greatness,
and even yet when I am close to a great man or woman I
shiver, so I shiveringly asked her what particular branch of
business, if she had one, she followed. She proudly said she
worked as a domestic in the homes of the rich, and therefore
the larders were always open to her. Llano held no attrac-
tions for her, and she left to seek her vision ip the palaces of
the great overlords.

The above divergence is to show you that Llano is imprac-
tical and hopeless to some, and a wonderfully real and hopeful
theme to another. How do you account for it? A half-dozen
people sit down at the same table and eat the same thing?, and
three get sick. Why? Every school of healing will answer
that question differently. How, then, can Llano be made a
place of satisfaction to every one?

Some have left Llano, and more will go, but many more
will come. Those who remain will be the inheritors of the
labors of the past. The world is not quite old enough to incul-
cate the lessons of co-operation sufficiently to make a deep
and lasting impression. However, the earth is being driven
to it. The great war is setting the pace, and organization and
co-operation is now almost worldwide, although the products
are not distributed on an organized basis as yet. However,
there's hope of this, and the sooner every one realizes the
necessity of getting together the quicker will the great food
and economical problems be worked out.

The Western Comrade

About Llano

Page eleven

May Day

By Dr. John Dequer

I AY DAY is of all days a day of joy in every country

Mnot stricken by the grim hand of war. In time
of peace May Day is a festival sacred to Labor

I ' throughout the civilized world. May Day, the day

of flowers, love and song. May Day, the day when the land
man sees the growing grain present its promise of a life-givmg
harvest. May Day embodies the spirit of hope for the year.
And in working-class circles it embodies the ideal of emancipa-
tion from economic slavery. It is a day sacred to the hope
preached by the prophets and teachers of the race. It promises
to the world that out of the seed of Labor Martyrdom shall
some day spring a harvest of justice, truth and righteousness.

The blossommg trees, the flowering shrub, the waving grass,
the singing bird wth love pain vibrating in its little heart as it
sits swinging by the nest of its mate, hoping for the safety of
the brood that is to be, proclaim the natural world filled wth
the creative passion, proclaim the love hour of Nature. The
flowers in color, the birds in song, the beasts in their noblest
bearing, rejoice to-day. All Nature shouts the onward march
of life. May Day, the day of life triumphant for man and beast.

Nature as such knows neither war or peace. Only mankind,
with their artificial society, have strangled love and enthroned
hate among themselves. They have crushed the heart to make
room for the brain. They have killed the heart to exalt the
flesh. Civilization based on class government has opened the
pit of Gehenna and let destruction loose in the world.

Throughout the world of Nature there is always struggle
and death between species. Joy for one is often brought with
pain for others. Still much of life's span is but love's sweet
agony. It rewards itself in the new life born. It gives us the
joyous lamb at play. It gives us the yellow-mouthed nestlings
on their bed of down. It gives the calf and the colt, trotting
by their mothers' side. True, they were born in agony, but
they live in joy. A joy to themselves and the being that bore
them. They live true to the law that all reach a heaven of
happiness through the reefs and shoals of pain. We win the
joy of rest only as a reward for struggle.

The hawk still preys on the dove only to lay it at the feet of
its young. The wolf still slays the sheep to feed her cubs.
The cougar purrs with delight over the carcass of a fawn. All
Nature is still "red in claw and fang." The love passion is seen
only in the species, but not between the species.

Here man is an exception. Civilization has given him power
and knowledge; it has robbed him of justice and feliov.-ship.
The natural world slays alien species for food. Man walks
to the goal of his ambition on carpets of kindred flesh.

"Yet I doubt not through the ages

One eternal purpose runs.
And the thoughts of men are widened

With the process of the suns!"
These cruel, heartless, soulless, hypocritical conflicts, who
knows but they may be the birth pains of a new social organ-
ization that shall be as beautiful and just as the present is
powerful and cruel? Who knows but that with the death of
kings, the fall of thrones, the bankruptcy of treasuries, with
the ruin of the commissary of the world, will come a new era
fathered by necessity and mothered by love? But our hopes
do not alter the realities of the present situation. Our hopes
do not silence the guns. Our hopes do not break the bayonets.
Our hopes do not extinguish the bombs. Our hopes do not
take the man from the ammunition and return him to the plow.

Our hopes do not stem the crimson tide that stains a thousand
fields. Our hopes are as vain as our prayers, unless they stim-
ulate us to action. Unless hoping leads to doing, our hopes
are of no avail.

Labor and love are the redemption and the resurrection;
work and wisdom the portals of salvation for mankind.

To do the social deeds will ere long not be a venture, but
a necessity. To care for the broken, the halt and the blind
made by war will become a universal duty. Love divorced
from charity, kindness purified by knowledge, humanity com-
pelled by circumstances, will lay the foundation for a new
earth. And when the new earth is won, heaven will be gained.
After this war will be the resurrection. Not the theological
resurrection of dead men, but the spiritual resurrection of dead
virtues. Justice, equality and brotherhood will rise as from
the tombs. After this \var the world will be redeemed from
the threefold curse of interest, rent and profit.

After this war we shall see the salvation born of production
for human needs. We shall be saved from the destruction born
of avarice and greed.

When the smoke has cleared and the passion died away
mankind will celebrate a glorious May Day in a new era — an
era where the self shall feel its dependence on the whole. We
shall celebrate a May Day of Nature, taking our children to
our hearts, instead of to the recruiting stations.

We will celebrate a May Day by beating our guns into
tractors and our shells into reapers. We shall celebrate a May
Day throughout the world as we celebrate it here to-day.

There is something almost prophetic in the birth of Llano.
It is more than mere circumstance. Less than four months
before the outbreak of the war the foundation of Llano was
laid. The first successful co-operative colony was started.
Like John of old crying in the wilderness, "Make straight the
paths of the Lord," so Llano cried from her nest in the desert,
"Co-operate and live." While the battle raged from Liege
to Arras, while blood flowed from Riga in Europe to Bagdad
in Asia, while hell's grim fury grasped all the Old World,
Llano, small and insignificant, cried its message of peace and'
union to a bewildered world. She labored to change the dust
of the desert into gardens of grain.

She battled with the rocks and thorns of Nature and of
ignorance. Her literature went out into the highways and
by\vays, into the fields and hedges. She drew the mind from
scenes of blood to scenes of peace. Many came and stayed
to fight with us. Some went back to the jobs and bosses of
capitalism. To-day we celebrate a victory — a victory not
without pain, but without blood; a victory not counted in
dead and wounded, but in fields and orchards, in herds and
industries. We celebrate a victory of co-operative achieve-
ments, v.'on against capitalism outside and ignorance inside
and wilderness under foot. We are battling to wn the state
of California to our ideals. We seek to conquer the world.
The Angel of Co-operation has come to redeem us from chaos.
Necessity, the great transformer of men and institutions, sent
her. She broods with gentle ardor over a self-sick world. She
inspires new motives, erects new standards. Through the
wreck and ruin of the old she moves, breathing hope, inspir-
ing vision and pointing the way.

Without her presence Llano would be impossible; without
her benediction upon the efforts of our brains and hands, man-
kind would destroy itself. Co-operation is the life and resur-
rection of the human race.

Page twelve

Mechanics

The Western Comrade

Efficiency

accom-
the

ID you ever meet this popular will-o'-the-wisp? If
so, you are a very fortunate person, because striving
for efficiency is like chasing a rainbow. By the time
you have painfully arrived at the place where it was
when you started after it, it has danced merrily on ahead,
leaving you to still struggle onward.

This term has become very popular in the last few years
and is handed about as cheerfully and carelessly as a new
slang phrase is by a bunch of rah! -rah! boys, and a person
who cannot put "efficiency," "psychology" and "submarine" all
into the same sentence gets a quiet look of
pity from his or her companions.

It was the man in overalls, with greasy
hands, with black finger-marks on his face,
with his back covered with dust and his
pockets sagging with monkey wrenches and
other miscellaneous hardware from crooked
wires to crank shafts, that put this term into
the spotlight and made it pop-
ular.

Efficiency is the
plishment of results in
best, easiest and quickest way.
Now it is a fact that the hu-
man brain is stimulated to ac-
tion by watching the opera-
tion of mechanical devices.
It is also nearly always neces-
sary to use mechanical de-
vices when efforts are made to
accomplish results in better,
easier and quicker ways. On
account of this fact it is
habitual for mechanics, as a
rule, to be on the lookout for
better methods to estimate the
possibility of satisfying the
need and to devise methods for the ac-
complishment of the end in question.

He has talked about it so much and
has shown such marvelous results that
the rest of the world has taken the cue
and today we see in every line of ac-
tivity time, energy and money devoted
to the discovery of better, easier and
quicker ways of obtaining the desirable

things of life. Like other good things, man will misuse e
ciency first and injure himself with it, then, having acquired
experience, he will make proper use of it. In fact, he is
going through that process now. He started out to get the
desirable things of life in the best, quickest and easiest way,
but he has become so interested in the best, easiest and quick-
est way that he has lost sight of the fact that it was only
desirable things that he was after, and the present time finds
him pulling down on his defenseless head an avalanche of
very undesirable things, and doing it in the best, easiest and
quickest way.

Meanwhile he is making discoveries and at the same time
the will-o'-the-wisp is dancing along ahead, always out of
reach. The best, easiest, and quickest way under yesterday's
conditions becomes the worst, hardest and slowest way under

Think of the
First we walked.

Athletics formed one of
Day. Below is one

effi-

By L. W. Millsap, Jr.

tomorrow's conditions and our work becomes only relative to
surrounding conditions.

Conditions set our standard and conditions change this stand-
ard from day to day. If we reach our standard on the day
it is set by conditions we work at one hundred per cent effi-
ciency. If we reach it a week later when new standards have
been set, our percentage is very low, and so the will-o'-the-wisp
beckons us on.

change of the standards in transportation.
It was the best, easiest and quickest way to
get somewhere. Then we forced another hu-
man being to carry us. Then we devised
a seat that could be carried by two individu-
als. Then we put wheels on this seat and
dispensed with one individual. Then we put
an animal in the place of the human being.
Next we put an engine in place of the animal.
Then we made the seat larger and carried a
number of people. Then we
made the engine smaller and
still hauled the same load.
Then we laid rails to run it
on and lessened the time and
energy; and so on ad infin-
itum. The canoe, the steam-
boat, the ocean liner. The
bicycle, the automobile. The
balloon, the airplane.

Every change made it nec-
essary for manufacturing
methods, habits and knowl-
edge to also change, and ev-
ery little change anywhere in
the whole industrial fabric
was felt eventually through
the whole mass.

Confusion? Yes. What of
it is incident to growth, well
and good; if it is not, there is no effi-
ciency. Efficiency lessens confusion,
change of conditions makes confusion
in related things because it sets new
standards. The valuable fact is this:
the confusion it creates is temporary,
while the lessening of confusion that it
makes possible is permanent.
Let us take a concrete example and analyze it. Suppose
a man starts manufacturing an article in a small, one-room
shop, and this grows into a big factory. He adds one machine
at a time and one building at a time until his plant covers
several blocks.

At every step he has aimed to take the best, easiest and
quickest way, but the chances are strong that he took the
easiest and quickest way, and gave little thought about whether
it was the best ultimately. Finally he realizes that something
is wrong. He is not getting the results, so he analyses the
situation and he may find something like this : His raw material
is delivered on one side of the plant while the first process
takes place on the other side. The processes carry the
material from one detached building to another till the last
process finds it at a point clear across the yard from where it

the chief attactions on May
of the serivng stands.

If

The Western Comrade

Mechanics

Page ihirleen

Part of the May Day crowd in line before the serving

must be delivered to the cars in a finished state. It has taken
time, energy and money to transport material across those
yards three times when once would have been much better,
had the machinery been laid out in the proper order.

There is no cure but to shut down, move all his buildings,
change the location of all his processes, and place them so that
the raw material is delivered at the closest possible point to
the first process, from which it travels the least possible distance
to the next process, etc., until when the last process is com-
pleted it is found at the closest possible point to the place
from which it may be shipped.

This is called "straight-line production." It causes tem-
porary confusion to plan the route for the material in process,
and then to move all the buildings and machinery to their
places, in conformity with the proper consecutive order, but
once it is done, less energy, time and money are required
from that time on.

Llano has grown to the point where straight-line production
must be planned and established in a number of places to pre-
vent extravagant expenditure of time, energy and money, and,
while the old way was the best under the conditions that de-
veloped it, a new standard must be set, and we hope to soon
have some good examples of straight-line production.

Another modern efficiency measure is called "division of
labor." Let us suppose that the labor question is repairing bi-
cycles. In a shop where jobs are few one man must be able
to do everything. He receives work, fixes tires, makes ad-
justments, does brazing and keeps books, or more often does
not keep them. His business increases and he hires men.
They all do as he does; that is, they do anything that is nec-
essary on the job in hand. When his business grows to the
point where five men are employed he realizes that something
is wrong. He is losing, the men are dissatisfied, and he does
not know why. Then he analyzes his trouble and makes a
discovery. Two men wish to use the same bench at the same
time and there is a local conflict of interest. One sharpens a
tool for his purpose and thereby spoils it for his fellow worker.
One estimates the price on a certain job and another estimates
a different price on the same job, and there is endless conflict
and loss. So after some study he changes his whole plan.
He selects the best fitted man and lets him meet customers,
and receive and deliver work. Another man is given a bench
to himself and tools for the purpose, and he opens up the
trouble and prepares the job for a more skilful man to finish.
Another is given all the rubber equipment and he fixes all the
tires. Another does assembling and makes all fine adjustments
while the fifth does brazing and heavier work. From that mo-
ment on there is no conflict, the men discover better methods
of doing the tasks in their division, a spirit of team work de-
velops and the whole organization radiates success and grows.

stands in the orchard. Over 1000 people were present.

These two examples will suffice to indicate methods. Besides
these there are "quantity production," "standardization,"
"simplification of process," "working to schedule," "motion
study," "scientific employment," and dozens of other efficiency
measures that are employed in modern industry. As long as
these are used to obtain desirable things and work to the ad-
vantage of all, everything is well, but when they are used for
purely selfish purposes Nature asserts herself and the punish-
ment is speedy and certain.

As Llano grows it is the hope of all that these methods
will be established as rapidly as circumstances will permit,
and, as all efforts will be directed to make them function for
the benefit of all, it is easy to imagine how rapidly the will-o'-
the-wisp will dance ahead and beckon us on into new fields
of endeavor. With light hearts we will follow as Nature in-
tended that we should.

A Social Puzzle

SOCIETY sat musing, very sad.
Upon her people's conduct, which was bad.
Said she, "I can't imagine why they sin,
With all the education I put in!
For instance, why so many maimed and sick
After their schooling in arithmetic?
Why should they cheat each other beyond telling
When they are so well grounded in good spelling?
They learned geography by land and tribe.
And yet my statesmen can't refuse a bribe!
Ought not a thorough knowledge of old Greek
To lead to that v^^de peace the nations seek?
And grammar! With their grammar understood.
Why should they still shed one another's blood?
Then, lest these ounces of prevention fail,
I've pounds and tons of cure — of no avail.
I punish terribly — and I have cause —
When they so sin aginst my righteous laws."
"Of grammar?" I enquired. She looked perplexed.
"For errors in their spelling?" She grew vexed.
"Failure in mathematics?" "You young fool!"
She said, "The law don't meddle with the school.
I teach with care and cost, but never ask
What conduct follows from the early task.
My punishment — with all the law's wide reach —
Is in the lines I don't pretend to teach!"

I meditated. Does one plant him corn, —
Then rage because no oranges are born?

• — C. P. Oilman in "The Forerunner."

Page fourteen

Art

The Western Comrade,

The Socialist City

By A. Constance Austin

EVICES for minimizing the labor of housekeeping are
an important part of the general conception of the
Socialist city. The frightfully wasteful process by
which women throw away their time and strength
and money in a continuous struggle to deal with a ridiculously
haphazard equipment in the ordinary home is one of the great
and useless extravagances of the present system.

In our model city modern schools, with their athletics and
supervised playgrounds, will relieve the mother of all duties
except the purely maternal ones of loving counsel, comfort and
never-failing refuge in the stress of human failings and dis-
asters.

The central kitchens will remove the hatefully monotonous
drudgery of cooking three meals a day, three hundred and
sixty-five days in the year, and washing the dishes. A few
improvements, such as stationary tubs, are in general use in
the better class of homes in many progressive communities.
It ought to be a penal offense not to have stationary tubs in
dwelling houses, just as it is to have anything but sanitary
plumbing. How many women have I seen bringing on per-
manent internal disorders by trying to lift the ordinary gal-
vanized iron tub! However, it is a fact that a very small
percentage of homes have these modern conveniences as yet.
In our city the stationary tubs will not be important, as the
people will own the central laundry and will be able to admin-
ister it so that their effects will not be damaged by careless-
ness, rough work and chemicals. It may be desirable to put
a small outfit in one of the roof bathrooms, so that particular
people can "do up" a few delicate articles when necessary,
and hang them up on the roof, where they will get the benefit
of the full blaze of the sun and will not be a disturbing ele-
ment in the neighbors' view, as the roof balustrades and per-
gola will provide seclusion even on the outdoor second story.

Electricity will contribute its thousand conveniences — light-
ing, heating, power for vacuum-cleaning and sewing machines,
egg-beaters, irons and who knows what devices the morrow
may bring forth in this age of miracles. "Built-in" furniture
solves the problem of unnecessary labor. Cleaning under
heavy furniture has always been an element of danger for the
frailer class of women and a temptation for neglect by the
careless housewife. Beds that can be swung this way or that
with a touch, and bookcases and sideboards that are part of
the wall finish, all mean economy of strength and time and
the achieving of real sanitary conditions. In the good old
times the more difficult details of cleaning were often deferred
by a desperately overworked housewife to a semi-annual
cyclonic disruption of the home.

Some of the most beautiful modern homes have tile floors,
which, beside having the harmonious tones of a Persian rug,
are the beau-ideal of simplicity of cleaning and absolute clin-
ical sterilizaton. A plan is contemplated in Llano by which
their only objection — chilliness — is overcome. Highly finished
cement is the next choice for floors, providing the same ar-
rangement is carried out. Both these floors require a number
of deep-naped small rugs, easily handled and placed in strate-
gic positions. We expect — indeed, vfe are already making —
very artistic rugs, which will be available to all our colonists,
not just the chosen few. Waxed or painted wooden floors
will probably, however, be preferred by the majority, from
conformity to habit. The children, however, will have an
opportunity in this, as in many other lines, to acquire habits

based on more advanced standards of beauty and simplicity.

Another household bugbear is the windows. As in the
model city these are nearly all French windows, and are not
commanded by the neighbors, and as the breezes of Llano
will all come over alfalfa fields and grasses of the parks, in-
stead of dusty streets, they can open, which will call for much
less cleaning. The glass of the sun parlor will be slightly
coated with paint, like a conservatory, which will diffuse the
light and reduce the cleaning to an occasional hosing. The
sun parlor in any case should have a concrete floor, as it
should be lined with vines and potted plants, and sprinkled
every evening just before bedtime by sprinklers so arranged
that by turning a svkdtch every part could be deluged simulta-
neously. The same arrangement should obtain in the patio
garden.

It is contemplated to deal with the fly nuisance in Llano
by permanent self-cleaning fly traps, on wings, which at inter-
vals would also provide the music. A compartment walled
with screen netting, roofed with glass, v^ith flowers and grass
for a floor, could be built onto the outside of the sun parlor,
which is also the dining room. This should be accessible only
by a bird-proof turntable door at one end. This arrangement
could be three feet wide and any length, an unimpeded flight
of sixty-five feet being possible. A little fountain would give
them permanent fresh water and baths. As any flies would be
inevitably attracted to the dining room, the usual arrange-
ment of some sugar and water and a slit would provide the
flies with speedy elimination by Nature's method — and the
birds with healthy exercise and normal conditions, which, how-
ever, would have to be greatly supplemented, as the fly crop
would soon cease to be. Llano could incidentally develop a
very profitable canary-breeding industry. It is thought that
even mocking-birds could be induced to breed in such normal
conditions. These and other fly-catchers would have to be
kept in any case with the canaries, as these last are not fly-
catchers, but only profit-catchers. Fly screens in the doors
and windows — prolific source of annoyance and one of the
little fretting conditions which reduce our vitality and efficiency
— could thus be eliminated.

The window curtain is another household scourge. Good
housekeepers — poor martyrs! — keep up a perpetual round of
washing and stretching and pressing, under which the delicate
fabrics quickly succumb and have to be expensively replaced.
Bad housekeepers have soiled curtains, which are much worse
than nothing. These ornamental draperies are of no particu-
lar service in keeping out sunlight or even prying eyes — (when
real protection is desired, you pull down the shades) — but
merely soften the lines of painfully crude window frames. A
much better way of treating all wall openings is to make the
frame so beautiful that no one will wish to mask it with mus-
lin. The solid frame itself can be delicately carved in low-
relief in wood or stone, or painted in subdued designs. A
whole new art industry could be developed in this almost
virgin field. The actual opening could be further outlined by
lacy tracery of wood or metal, which would accent the lovely
vistas of our parks with a transparent frame visible even at
night in a darkened room. Under these conditions curtains
would become a pleasant eccentricity practiced by curtain-
born housekeepers to whom these little conventions are the
manifestations of their interests and activities.

(Continued on Page 26)

The Western Comrade

Mechanics

Page fifteen

Making Wood Pulp for Paper

By R. A. Barber

N TAKING up the subject of papermaking, the first

I step is the preparation of the wood, which is to be
converted into pulp. Spruce is the best wood for
the purpose, although other timbers are used, espec-
ially hemlock. None of the hard woods are suitable.

The wood is first cut into convenient lengths for handling.
After the trees have been cut the desired lengths, the bark is
removed either with drawshaves or axes. If the timber is of
large dimensions, it is cut into shorter lengths and split into
blocks of the proper size to be fed into the clipping machines.

Spruce and hemlock trimmings and cull pieces from saw-
mills, after being reduced to proper lengths, are also utilized
in pulpmaking.

The clipping machines, or chippers, as they are termed, con-
sist of heavy circular plates revolving at high speed in a sort
of iron hopper. The opening through which the wood is
thrust against the knives is box-shaped, between two and three
feet long and about one foot square. This is set at an angle
with the revolving plate, which gives a shearing cut to the
wood. If the pieces of wood to be chipped were presented to
the knives endwise and at right angles the result would be
more of a grinding process and would not chip easily.

These chippers reduce the inserted pieces of wood into chips

chlorine gas is also mixed with this liquid composition and
held in solution. The pulp, having been properly screened, is
now conveyed to the bleach tanks.

The pulp is again submitted to a washing process in the
tanks, in which a portion of the bleaching liquid is mixed
with the water, and as the pulp is conveyed from one tank
to another the amount of the bleaching liquid is lessened until
the bleaching is completed.

The pulp passes from the last bleaching tank over the other
bleach screens, from whence it is conveyed to another wash-
ing tank. In this a long wooden drum of a peculiar slatted
construction is revolving. The bleached pulp is mixed with
water. The water, laden with pulp, passes into both ends of
this revolving drum, passing out through the slatted portions.
This causes the pulp to be thoroughly washed and at the
same time has a tendency to break up any portion of the pulp
which may adhere, so that the fibers may be distributed evenly
through the water.

The water carrying the clean and bleached pulp passes on
to another tank, where it is ready to be taken and pressed
into sheet form. This process will be somewhat difficult to
describe except in a general way.

Revolving in the last-named tank, which is about eight feet

Celebrating May Day. —
Center and right-hand scenes
show preparations for serv-
ing lunch to 1,000 persons.

of varying sizes. They are carried on an elevater to a re-
volving wire screen similar to a corn popper, only very much
larger. From this revolving screen the chips are conveyed
to shaker screens, which remove all the fine sawdust-like por-
tions, for the chips must have some length to produce fiber.

The chips are conveyed from the screens to bins located
above the digesters. These digesters ar about forty-five feet
in length and fourteen or fifteen feet in diameter, made of
steel and lined v^ath brick. The digesters are filled with the
chips, and a liquid, consisting chiefly of sulphuric acid, is
poured over them. The whole mass is then cooked with steam
from seven to eight hours.

The cooked mass is blown by steam from the digesters into
a tank with a perforated bottom, where the pulp is thoroughly
washed with a hose for the purpose of removing the acid, dirt
and other foreign matter that might have adhered to the wood.

After being washed, the pulp is passed over what is termed
the unbleached screens, to remove any portions of the wood
that may not have yielded to the digesters. The pulp is then
submitted to a bath, composed mainly of salt electrically treat-
ed, for the purpose of bleaching. The salt is arranged in
cells and submitted to a current of electricity, by which chlor-
ine gas is generated. The bleaching liquid is composed mostly
of lime and other ingredients having bleaching qualities, and
is reduced to the proper consistency by adding water. The

long, is a drum perhaps three feet in diameter, faced with
rubber corrugated in a circular manner, not longitudinal. As
this drum revolves in the water it picks up a portion of the
pulp, which adheres to its corrugated surface.

Running horizontally above this drum and in close prox-
imity to it, is a canvas-like sheet about eight feet wide, made
from pure wool and rather roughly woven. As the drum re-
volves the pulp meets with the wool canvas and is deposited
evenly on its surface. The pulp now meets a felt sheet of the
same width running like a belt over the rollers. The roller run-
ning close to the woolen sheet is made of some polished metal,
perhaps steel. It is called the press roll. Directly under this
metal roll is a similar one, and over this the woolen sheet
passes. At this point and for some distance the woolen and
woolen felt sheets run together in close proximity. As the
pulp is carried along on the surface of the woolen sheet it
comes in contact with the felt sheet and at the same time
passes between the press rolls and continues on between the
felt and woolen sheets. This process squeezes out the surplus
water from the pulp and at the same time converts the pulp
into sheet form. Later it passes through a set of press rolls
and becomes a sheet less than an eighth of an inch in thickness.

At this point we now have our pulp in a somewhat usable
shape, but still too moist and tender to be handled. This
(Continued on Page 26)

Page sixteen

Was Schmidt Guilty?— Job Har

[This is the second installment of Comrade Harriman's address in the
trial of the Los Angeles Times dynamiting cases.]

SHALL I say perjury? Yes, perjury! It is easy to say
perjury. It is easy for the District Attorney to scream
perjury, which he did, but he showed no evidence.

I shall not only accuse them of perjury, but I shall let

the poisoned statements that fell from their putrid lips turn
like the serpents they are, and sink their poisoned fangs in the
very hearts of their testimony.

Let us first consider the testimony of the felon Clark of Cin-
cinnati — Clark of Goosetown fame; Clark, who stealthily went
to Goosetown and met a man with a basketful of dynamite,
twenty pounds of 80 per cent nitro-glycerine ! How re-
markable! Just the amount and just the per cent that the
prosecution would have you believe was placed in the Times
Building. He told you that there were about twenty sticks
weighing about one pound each; that they lay in his little
basket without wrappers and did not mash or run together
during the entire trip from Goosetown to Cincinnati and from
Cleveland to Dayton, Ohio.

Eighty per cent nitro-glycerine, in sticks, put out by the
manufacturer without wrappers, and carried in a warm car
for hours without running together! What a statement! It
would tax the ignorance of a mule and the credulity of a
simpleton to believe it.

One hundred per cent is oil. Eighty per cent is soft and
mushy. But listen! He took this mushy stuff and kept it all
night in his home in Cincinnati and picked it up, stick by
stick, and gently laid it in his valise and inserted a concussion
cap according to his instructions, he never having performed
such a feat before. Then he attached sixty feet of fuse,
closed the valise and took the first passenger train for Dayton
to do his deadly work. Do you remember the terrible havoc
and fearful wreck produced by this infernal machine?

Listen ! It was raining on that fatal night when he stealthily
stole his way through the sleeping, peaceful city of Dayton,
to River Bridge, and thence to the engine and crane, where
this felon placed his infernal machine. Down close under the
shoe of the derrick the dynamite was pressed and over it
was placed, closely and snugly, an umbrella, to shed the
drenching rain, that nothing might interfere with the deadly
work. The fuse was lighted and the perjured villain found
his way to the streets of the city and there waited that he
might hear the terrible crack and know his work was well
done. The devilish sound of twenty pounds of 80 per cent
nitro-glycerine came crashing and roaring through the streets
and lo! it only blew off the skin of this umbrella!

Look at it! The cloth is gone, but not a ware is bent or
twisted. The enamel is not even disturbed.

Look at it! See the handle! It escaped scot-free! Not
a crack or a scratch on it! Ah! his initials that he carved
on the handle before he placed it over this terrible infernal
machine are likewise undisturbed. Look at them! Placed
there to tell who was guilty of the crime ! He was not arrested,
nor was the crane broken, nor any damage of consequence
done. And for this reason, this perjured felon says he was
not permitted to continue the work of destruction. Again
I beseech you to inspect this umbrella. See the ribs and the
stays and the handle and the staff unbroken and in perfect
form and shape. You, gentlemen of the jury, know that this

umbrella is telling you the truth. Every rib and stay tells you
in no uncertain terms that the felon Clark is a villainous per-
jurer. They tell you that Clark never placed dynamite under
the crane of the Dayton bridge.

They tell you that they were in Cincinnati at home with him
that night. They tell you that this felon was put upon this
stand to help hang this defendant with a lie. They tell you
that the prosecuting attorney knows that the felon Clark was
giving perjured testimony when he swore that this unscathed
umbrella frame was pressed close down over twenty pounds
of eighty per cent nitro-glycerine when it exploded. I had
rather my blood would curdle in my veins than to present
such evidence with which to take a human life. He would
have you believe that twenty pounds of eighty per cent nitro-

I

Correctioiilc

IN the May WESTERN COMRADE, on these pages, an an-
nouncement was made of the purchase of a great strip of
territory in the San Joaquin Valley.

When the article was written and the advertisement inserted
on the back cover page, all details had been concluded and it seemed
that the deal was finished.

But the first negotiations had been made before the United States
decided to go into the war. The prospects of a long and costly war,
which would place additional burdens on all of the people, and which
the Llano del Rio Co-operative Colony could not hope to escape, led
the Board of Directors to reconsider their first unofficial decision.

A visit was made to the new property. After thb, a thorough
discussion of the probable costs, the hardships that might be imposed
by war conditions, and which cannot be foreseen though they may
be judged by what the warring countries are going through, led the
directors to take a different view of the matter.

The result was that they have decided that it is too much to attempt
under the conditions which the Colony, together with the rest of the
country, must face.

Therefore, the land purchase must be laid over, and all energy and

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glycerine would twist and tear and break a six-inch steel
beam while the frail reeds of an umbrella in equal proximity
would go unscathed. You have a right to expect a lie from
a felon and an equal right to expect good faith upon the part
of the District Attorney. The rule is that when one is false in
one thing that you should look with mistrust upon all he says
or does. This rule should apply to attorney and witness alike.

It is upon the testimony of this felon Clark that the prose-
cution hopes to lead you to believe that violence began prior
to 1906.

Now let us turn our attention to Mr. Noel's "tender-
hearted," angelic felon, Davis of Massachusetts.

Once he, too, was an iron worker. He was no angel then.
You should have heard the attorney for the Steel Trust de-

'inlioi

iiBlli

! ll oper;

Page seventeen

riman's Address to the Jury

scribing his villainous heart to the jury who pronouriced hirn a
felon; a heart rich in abundance with all the criminal im-
pulses known to the law. Wings? Not then! Barrels of iron,
with triggers and nitro-glycerine, told the story of his virtues
and his means of defense. His wings had not sprouted their.
Only after he became a witness for the state was it that his
wings loomed up and his angelic disposition appeared. When
he was in real life, before he became an angel, and before
his wings had sprouted, he was the possessor of a brace of
substantial Colt's revolvers, and, though he wore them behind,
he was unable to fly with them. Yet by his skillful use of
them he was able to make others fly.

A strange and remarkable angel this! He was charged with
an assault with a deadly weapon. An angel with murder in

of Error

sources given to a more extensive and thorough development of the
esent holdings, amounting to about nine thousand acres.
The WESTERN COMRADE, in making the announcement, had
get those pages into print in order to get the magazine out on
tne. When the article was written, there appeared to be not the
ghtest doubt but that the deal would be finished before the maga-
ties reached the readers. In fact, the deal seemed to be definite-
settled.

(kid However, though the particular purchase under consideration was
i,l( »t put through, it shows what the general plan of the Colony is
n, id indicates what may be expected as an announcement in the future.
OBjl Notvnthstanding the fact that there are thousands of acres ad-
»i«l cent to the Colony that will undoubtedly be acquired, the intention
Ml the Llano del Rio Colony is to extend the holdings everywhere,
Jlk curing tracts in various places so that the greatest possible variety
■ products may be grown on lands owned and controlled by the
jiip jlony. Wheat lands, cotton lands, tracts suitable for growing many
III nds of fruits, as well as timber lands and grazing lands, will come
ithin the control of the Colony when the formulated policy is in
ill operation.

his heart, produced here "To tell the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth, so help me God!"

What a travesty! And upon his word a man shall hang.
He was as vicious then as he is now, and he is as vicious now
as he was then. He was a felon then and he is a felon now.
He was a liar and perjurer then, when he said he was not
guilty. He is a liar and perjurer now when he says that so-
called conspirators committed violence before the year 1906.
Why, McManigal himself describes the first explosion and says
that Hockin, the ringleader, did not know where to get the
dynamite when they first met.

Dugan! Who is Dugan? He is the man who swore that
J. J. McNamara offered to send him nitro-glycerine early in
1906. He is a self-confessed felon. Is there a single man on

this jury who would believe that the prison doors would remain
open to this felon if he did not tell a story agreeable to the
prosecution? If his story were true, would it be necessary
to open the doors to this non-union man in order to get the
truth? He was expelled from the Iron Workers* Union. If
the truth were against his enemies would he not tell it without
a bribe? He is out of prison without bonds. The doors of the
prison are open to receive him if his story displeases the 9
prosecution in this case. Do you remember the umbrella story
of Clark? Is there a man on this jury who can believe that
the District Attorney did not know that Clark was perjur-
ing himself when he told that umbrella story? Will the
same District Attorney not demand as rigidly and receive as
gladly the perjury from this felon's lips? Do you think that
the prison doors would be opened to a double murderer in
order to convict a so-called conspirator, if only to convict him
of murder? Ah! There is more than human life at stake here.
There are millions of dollars of profits at stake. And what is
the life of a human being when money is at stake?

Destroy the labor unions and possible profits become real.
Fail, and they disappear. Has not the Steel Trust sufficient
power to open the doors for the desired perjured testimony?
Would a man guilty of murder not perjure himself if such per-
jury would save his own life, even though it helped to murder
another man? And is it any less a crime in the eyes of the
prosecution to murder with a lie than to murder with a gun?

Who is this man Dugan? He is the man who shot and
killed his wife and wounded his daughter in Indianapolis, In-
diana, the home of the gentleman assisting in this prosecution.

WOOLWINE. — That is not in the evidence.

HARRIMAN. — Get the International Iron Workers' maga-
zine and I'll read the story of the murder.

McKENZIE. — That is in the volume published some two
years after the Times explosion, and was only introduced for
identification.

HARRIMAN. — I beg your pardon. I thought the story of
his murder was published in an earlier volume. This fact is
not in evidence and hence this cloud shall be lifted from the
gloom that shrouds the putrid character of this perjured felon.
Without further comment I must therefore leave him with you,
together with the other felons who testified that violence
began before 1906,

The purpose of this perjured testimony is to throw the re-
sponsibility of violence upon organized labor while the oppor-
tunity was open for a fair fight in an open field. After the
resolution was passed in 1906 the field was no longer open.
A fair fight was no longer possible. Not only did the Steel
Trust hold all the erection and construction companies in line,
presenting a solid front, by refusing to sell steel to whomsoever
faltered, and by forcing the association to pay the losses of
each member, but in addition the Steel Trust, with all its in-
fluence, was able to direct the power of government against
these union men. The energetic enforcement of this resolution
cast a gloom over the entire organization and robbed the Inter-
national officers of all hope of future success. They, more than
all others, were conscious of the tremendous power arrayed
against them. Their organization was dissolving. The men
could not understand why defeat after defeat awaited them
on every hand.

("Was Schmidt Guilty?" began in the May number and will run for
several months. Back numbers, ten cents a copy.]

Page eighteen

Ficti<

The Western Comrade

Dearer Than Honor

By Ethel Winger

SUE WINTER looked up from her text of sociology to
the couch where Anne Marshall was comfortably
curled as she read. "I wonder how it feels," Sue

asked, enviously, "to come back to the dorm and

visit, and not to have to bother with lessons, to get all the fun
of college without having classes interrupting your school
work, to have time to read novels "

"Why," replied Anne, "you long for some lectures to go to,
and you get so lonesome for 'em you visit all of Father Flan-
ders' classes and tag Sunny to his; and I'm NOT reading a
novel. I'm studying the same thing you are — the same sub-
ject, that is. The difference lies in the fact that your book
was written by some hidebound theorizer, in the orthodox
style, while mine is interesting and deals with realities."

"Is it the text you used last year?"

"Heavens, no — child! It is Deming's 'Message to the Mid-
dle Class.' I wouldn't advise you to mention it to your prof.
He might get a few ideas, and that would prove fatal. And
this is 'War — What For?' I'm trying to review some points to
use in my arguments with Don, to see if I can keep him from
going off to 'somewhere in France.' "

"Why, Anne, you wouldn't prevent him from using this
opportunity to serve his country, would you — and humanity —
in this war for "

"Bosh!" returned Anne, with the frankness one bestows on
a best friend. "You make me sick. Of course, I would. I'll
read you a letter from a highbrow friend I acquired this year.
He can explain it to you better than I." She fished in a pocket
and produced a typewritten page. "Listen :

^' 'This war situation looks serious, doesn't it? In yester-
day's paper I saw that they are planning more concentratedly
on this measure for a 'selective draft.' It has been urged that
the first installment be taken from those from twenty to twenty-
five years of age, and of course that includes me. But I shall
not go, if I can help it; it is against my principles. It is not
that I am a coward, for I think that it takes more courage
to face public opinion at home than bullets abroad; it is
simply that all my instincts are against war — especially UN-
NECESSARY war, as this is.

" 'In any national crisis, it is supposed to be every patriot's
duty to offer his life for the cause, whatever it may be. But
I think it is his greater duty to investigate the cause, and, if it
is unworthy, to refuse it allegiance. A war like this is a war
against social order; it places nationality paramount to mor-
ality. It denies the teachings of the Prince of Peace. It makes
beasts and butchers of people who call themselves men. I, for
one, think we have a greater need for volunteers in the Army
of Social Service. I could no more go to the trenches and
wait destruction at the hands of men with whom I have no
quarrel than I could go fight out here in the streets and kill
the first passerby ITiappened to see. What is the difference?
In either case I would be killing innocent strangers, my own
brothers. I may be a mental coward and a moral pervert, but
that is my sincere idea on the subject.

" 'I am convinced that there are others, untouched by capi-
talistic viewpoints, who feel as I do. Since it has been pro-
vided that married men probably will not be called out at
first, the report is significant that six hundred men stood in
line before the marriage license bureau in one of our large
cities. I do not consider these men necessarily cowards; prob-

ably their minds, like mine, revolt against war, and they are
using every legitimate means to avoid it personally.'

"And that's exactly how I feel about it! Now, don't you
start an argument — wait until I get back. It's two o'clock, and
I promised Father Flanders to be at his lecture room with
these books of his exactly at two. Where IS my hat?"

Sue watched while Anne crushed on a small sport hat,
secured by a band under her chin, and noticed how effectively
the white felt contrasted with the gleaming black hair, the
sparkling dark eyes and the rich brunette skin. She was a
vibrant little figure, there before tbe mirror, hastily dabbing
powder on her saucy nose, and smiling at her own piquant face
in the glass. Turning to her friend, she announced: "I want
your tennis racket."

"In the corner, dear," returned Sue. "Help yourself. But

who are you tennising with today — Si, or Toby, or Nobby,

»»
or

"Why, Sunny Flanders — of course!"

"I might have known that. I don't mind you playing tennis
with him, heaven knows. But I do hate to see you playing on
that infant's affections; he's too big a dear to be turned into
a cynic for life. Have a heart! Isn't it enough to flirt with
the other fellows?"

"My friend, I'm not playing on anything of his except his
tennis courts, and at that we usually use the college courts.
I might flirt with him if he were like the other fellows — if he
had tissue paper for skin, spaghetti for bones, and sour jelly
between. But Sunny has too much sense — and I am merely
his dear, motherly sister."

"But are you sure that's all? Since you've come back I've
noticed "

"I've not a second to listen," Anne broke in, as a dull red
crept over her face. "If I don't beat it right now Father Flan-
ders will be permitting himself the extravagance of tearing his
hair. Thanks for the racket. Bye, beloved; see you later."
And, playfully tapping her friend farewell with the tennis
racket, she was gone.

Sue could not keep her mind on her book. What was Anne
up to now? Did her blush disprove her words? Was her
haste an evasion? Sue was sure that something was going on
beneath that flippancy — but what? She pondered again over
'^the triumvirate," as Anne had dubbed herself. Professor
Flanders and his only son — called "Sonny" by his father and
"Sunny" by the adoring students, who loved his wholesome
gaiety and refused to take him seriously. Western University
had smiled indulgently the last two years when Anne would
accompany the professor on his daily walk; it had grinned in
open amusement when Anne and Sunny strolled off to the
tennis courts, while certain upper classmen would watch with
jealous disgust that "upstart" playing with the most popular
girl in school. But Western University was frankly puzzled
when Anne, Sunny and his father would go off every holiday,
laden with inviting baskets, for a hike along the river. Anne
was reckless. Sue thought. If Professor Flanders, a widower
as he was, had not been the oldest, gentlest, most loved man
on the faculty — of the scholarly, classical type you would ex-
pect in a Latin professor — and if Sunny had not been so irre-
pressibly boyish, friends with all the girls, but "queening"
with none; and if Anne had not, notwithstanding her lack of
conventionality, warmed her way into everybody's heart and
stayed there because of her human touch, her comprehending

The Western Comrade

Ficti

Page nineteen

sympathy and her unending vivacity, she might have created
a lot of gossip. But the three were so childhke in their enjoy-
ment of each other, so frank in their affection, that nobody
had the heart to disapprove. They merely pulled Anne away
for as many engagements as possible outside the little circle,
and wondered whether Anne were more interested in father
or son and if father or son were more intrested in her. No-
body knew — except Sue. Sf-fE knew that Anne always called
the professor "father" and that during the entire course she
had given him a daughter's affection and received a fatherly
love in return. With him she discussed all her ambitions, her
tendencies, her affairs, as well as philosophical questions of
the day, in which Anne was unusually well versed for a girl
of her age. Not until Sunny entered college, in Anne's third
year, had she grown acquainted with him and gradually devel-
oped a sisterly affection for him. Anne had understood, as
did Sue, that Sunny had a keen mind. He had taken all the
available honors and scholarships as he went along, in spite
of his relative youth, but, like the rest of the students, she
never took him seriously, and laujhed and played with him.

ing the campus the following week when her school was out.
Sue determined to learn the true state of affairs. But, when
Anne had arrived, they had so many places to go, and so many
people to see, that they seemed never to have time for their
old, intimate talks. And if conversation became gradually
serious Anne would interrupt suddenly with some appoint-
ment, as she had this morning, saying, perhaps, "To be con-
tinued in our next." Well, Anne's visit would last a week

longer, and some time

The clock, striking half-past two, interrupted Sue's medita-
tions. She sprang up, looked with chagrin at her unfinished
assignment, snatched a sweater and, dashing off, was soon in
the classroom, buried in the professor's serious explanation of
the present war as a war for humanity, quite unconscious of
the fact that, a floor above, Anne was having a talk with
"Father Flanders" in the Latin room, and that they, too, were
discussing the war and the drafting situation.

"Come, father," Anne was saying at the window, "just look
at that group of boys down there. It's Si and Toby and Nobby

The reception room of
the new dormitory, un-
finished, was used by the
Western Comrade for a
display booth ; besides
the Comrade exhibit, a
model of the Austin house
plan was demonstrated to
residents and visitors.

and quarreled with him, in a big-sister attitude. Hers was
the superior wisdom of twenty-three, looking down on the
boyish precocity of nineteen. And she was inclined to
"mother" him.

But Sue wondered. Did Anne realize what Sue had grown
to suspect — that something lay deeper in Sunny's mind than
that childish comradeship ? She had watched him after Anne's
graduation. A more serious look, somehow, was in his eyes.
And Sue, as Anne's best friend, had noticed, because she saw
more of him than anybody else. And she realized that it
was largely because she was Anne's friend that Sunny sought
her out very often. Always he would speak of her chum, and
ask what news she had; and when Anne's long, entertaining
letters came they would laugh and talk over them. Sunny
was always happier on those days, and Sue named them
"Sunny days." Did Anne realize what she was doing to
him? Had her unusual knowledge of human nature, as ap-
plied to everybody else, failed her with Sunny because she
never took him seriously? If Sunny had only been like the
other fellows it would not have been so bad! When Sunny
had triumphantly produced a letter from Anne, telling of visit-

Perkins. I love every one of 'em. They're all such manly
fellows — you don't find many of THEIR kind, even in this old
university. They're just getting in from surveying. Look at
them — tall, strong young fellows — 'fine material for the army,'
as the speaker said in assembly this morning. Just think of it,
father! The very type of men our country will need for con-
structive, not destructive, work. Yet, any time, they may be
called out to the war and they'll go — and never come back,
perhaps. They think it's their duty! You read those para-
graphs of my letter — that's the way I feel. Father, you are
the person who taught me Socialism, even if the college author-
ities don't know it. You gave me this book, 'War — ^What
For?' and you understand it better than I. So you understand
what I feel when I say I'd rather see Si and Toby and Nobby —
yes, even Sunny! — and I like him best of all — I say I'd rather
see them shot for treason for refusal to serve, if worst should
come to worst, than to see them go back on their sense of
right, their principle, and join the army! Wouldnt YOU?
Wouldn't YOU rather see them die in the face of public opin-
ion, martyrs to the cause of truth, than see them go off amid
the cheers of the populace — to war — to die — however gal-

Page twenty

Fiction

The Western Comrade

lantly — martyrs to the cause of the munition - makers?
Wouldn't YOU?"

Anne's voice was tense. Her hands were clenched. Every
muscle of her body was taut. Her blazing eyes, seeking those
of the professor's, softened as she saw his had dimmed during
her appeal, and she noted his anguish as he turned away and
sank into a chair. But, still tense, she waited for a reply.

"Theoretically, yes, daughter." His voice quavered to a
whisper. "Practically "

The negation was clearly expressed, although he uttered no
word. His head fell to his hands on the desk before him, and
suddenly there swept through Anne the poignant sensation of
his own anguish — with her own sorrow for him added to it.
She knew that he was crying over and over in his heart, "My
son! My sonny boy!" And because convention meant noth-
ing to Anne, and because she was impulsively human, she
went to the arm of his chair and put her arm around the old
man's shoulder.

"Don't, father. ... I didn't realize how I was hurting
you. I didn't realize ... I don't yet . . . but I
understand . . . something of what Sunny means to you.
I've never known a mother — or any father but you, or any
brother but Sunny. And I never quite knew what it meant.
I see better now that I was wrong — and selfish. I shouldn't
have said that."

For a long time they sat in silence, neither trusting to speak.
Then Anne went over again to the window. She caught a
glimpse of Sunny, tennis racket in hand, going to the library
— to meet her. All at once there was a tug at her heart.
Glancing quickly away, she found the professor at her side,
looking at her. She could not bear the pain in his eyes, for
she felt the tears growing in hers as she .turned away. He
spoke :

"You were right, • daughter — you were quite right. Dis-
believing in war, and understanding many of the reasons why
we are involved in this one, I should, in all honor, sacrifice, if
needed, even my own son to that truth. You, as nobody else,
understand a little how wrapped up I am in him — how dear
he is to me — how doubly dear because he cost me his mother's
life, and because I promised her always to take care of him,
the care she would have given him. And it is easier for you
and Sonny to have such strong hearts in a matter of this kind.
Your aspirations are untried; your hopes are new. The world
has not yet laid its heavy hand upon you. But I — I have
lived most of my life now, and in living I learned deeply the
truth you were reading in that book: that we may hold honor
dearer than life, but that we cannot — MOST of us cannot —
hold it dearer than the lives of those dearest to us. In Sonny
I see his mother living again — Tier sweetness, her sympathy,
her joyousness, her simplicity. Yet he does not lack the manly
qualities, the manly strength, in whicTi I failed today. HE
would Sacrifice his life for that principle, but I — I cannot! —
would not! were a choice given me, sacrifice my boy! My
boy! Always my boy, to me. If he is taken, I would die!"

There had never been such a moment in Anne's lifetime.
In the presence of his emotion a sword seemed to pierce her
own heart also. She loved him as she loved nobody else in
the world. He had been a father to her. And it came over
her, the truth of what he said: She might be able to sacrifice
herself — or Sonny — for honor, but she could not bear to see
her father bear the sacrifice of his son! For her father was
dearer than honor! Dearer, perhaps, because he was not her
real father, for a real father would have owed her the kind-
ness that he had shown her from choice. That, in her life, was
the thing that had always touched her girlish gratitude. He

had given her so much of a father's love, vvithout having had
a father's responsibility. But he was speaking.

"It has been so, my whole life. I have been a coward —
not for myself, but for others. It is as this book tells you.
I was wheat; I hated tares. Yet I have not been willing to
have all the tares pulled, because some of my wheat might
come with it.

"I had the usual expensive, orthodox classical training of
the men of my day, of my class. Not till I was almost forty
did I finally embrace Socialism. My travels and researches
had prevented saving. But I still felt young and brave. Then
I married. I had my chair in the college, and my work here
was all I was fitted for. Sunny 's mother was delicate. It
would be only a few years, I thought, until I would be able to
get a start. I would stay here quietly and not advertise my
new belief until I was in a better position to do so — until she
would get better. But she never did. For her sake, I had to
provide a few of the best things of life. I could not risk losing
my position by flaunting my opinions for a while. Then when
she died and left me Sunny, it was the same thing over. He
was a sickly child, and I was so afraid of losing him. I kept
him under a doctor's constant care. It was expensive. It was
important to Iceep my place.

"Gradually I gave up all my plans. I was getting old. It
seemed a hopeless game. I have kept my new light of truth
under a bushel. For after all I was only a Latin professor,
even though I was as high up as most in the profession. My
temperament, my training, were unfitted for propaganda work.
I have found little time for writing, and I dared not publish
the manuscripts I had. So I have contented myself with in-
direct influence, lending my books mostly to young tradesmen
in the town, and I am giving night lessons in English to the
mechanics. They get my books, and perhaps after all my in-
fluence has been as great as if I had not been what I am, in
a way, a hypocrite."

"You have! I know it!" cried Anne. "You have put me
and others on the right track. And so you HAVE been actively
working in the field. But there is Sunny again. What would
you do if HE were called out?"

"I would have him go — if he will — and hope for the hope-
less chance that he may be spared. And then " His voice

broke.

Something in Anne seemed to snap, and she burst out in
a sudden blaze of passion: "Father! Isn't it terrible that
we who know why — and how — the proposed war may be, that
we who are not the dupes of public opinion, the press, the
preachers, the capitalists, are forced by circumstances to sub-
mit! Or, perhaps, if the militaristic spirit increases, to risk
our lives by refusal! There are thousands who think they are
fighting for democracy, for their homes, when they go to war.
Knowing their sincerity, I can only admire their courage.
But how CAN they think they are fighting autocracy, as op-
posed to democracy, by slaughtering the workers of the na-
tions? How can they think they are fighting to defend their
homes by overthrowing the same kind of homes of the same
kind of people, with whom thev have no quarrel and whom
they have never seen? How blindly thev will fight at the
command of their autocrats! Why can't they see the root of
things? We can't help them — they won't be helped. We
can't tell them — they won't listen. And we can't help the
ones who DO know the causes but who are the victims just
the same — like Si and Nobby and Toby and Sunny! Surelv
something will be done — a brighter, sunnier dav will

dawn " She saw her growing incoherency and flushed,

but plunged on. "I haven't any right to be selfish, I know.

The Western Comrade

Fiction

Page twenty-one

How can I hope that Sunny and MY friends will be spared —
and hope that other girls' brothers and friends will be killed
instead? But Sunny, in his fineness, his wholesomeness, like
a ray of sunlight on a gloomy day, a breath of fresh air in
a vitiated atmosphere — to see all THAT wasted — don't,
father! If he goes, I will be more than your own daughter —
you will always have me, you know." A tear dropped on the
sill before her, falling on the open letter she had read to him.
It struck the last paragraph. Dumbly she looked at it, uncon-
scious, and suddenly its meaning flashed to her. "Since it has
been rumored that married men probably will not be called

out at first " Anne's heart skipped a beat and then went

pounding away. What an idea! COULD she? A musical
chime, contrasting with her turbulent mood, sang slowly
through the hour.

"Three o'clock already!" she exclaimed. "I promised to
play with Sunny at three. And listen, father! I've first
thought of a way out — maybe. I'll tell you later." She tried
to laugh, but it was a hysterical little laugh, and impulsively
she kissed the professor right on the bald top of his bowed
head. Laughing again, now merrily, she had seized her racket
and was tapping down the steps before the astonished man
could recover his senses.

As Anne hurried through the building she forced her face
into its usual expression, pausing at the door to make sure
that her smile was on straight. Then, with an effort, she fell
into her long, athletic stride. She made a vivid picture in
her white middy suit, with its blue collar and red tie, for the
last hour had put a heightened color in her face and a deeper
flash to her eyes. The freshmen all turned to stare, for she
was a stranger to them. To avoid the students thronging the
class, she "cut campus," something no underclassmen would
dare to do; but in spite of her hurry she was delayed all
along the way by juniors in their corduroys asking how long
she would be there, and by the seniors, distinguished by their
somber sombreros, who wanted to know if they could go to
the movies or some dance that night, or to-raorrow night, or
the next.

Sunny, watching impatiently from a library v^indow, saw
all this, and tried in vain to kill a certain green monster inside'
him, which, like the beast of Hercules, seemed to grow larger
with every blow given it. As Anne neared the building he
suddenly became absorbed in his "History of Art" and, with
splendid concentrated enthusiasm, began taking notes from
his book. He wrote: "Fra Angelico (1387-1455). Painted
madonnas of the gentle, insipid type, like that Toby out there.
Same inane grin that would make you wonder if anybody were
home, if you didn't know already there wasn't." He seemed
to derive comfort from the process, and he continued. "Fra
Filippo Lippi (1402-1469). Too bad that Guy Perkins wasn't
named that — would just have suited him. It's a double-
decked shame that Titian (1477-1576) died before he saw
that tie Si Lentz is wearing; he might have got a few new
ideas in coloring "

He fumed a page, for he sensed, rather than saw, Anne
coming toward him, pausing to whisper some greeting to
students at various tables. With painstaking care he was
writing out: "Ghirlandajo (1449-14 )" when an un-
ceremonious poke from Anne's racket closed his book and gave
him the cue to look up, registering complete surprise.

"What do you think this is?" demanded Anne mih mock
severity. "Greek art? Then kindly stir your pediment
groups, or all the courts w{\\ be full."

Sunny looked significantly from the clock to the face above
his chair and, rising, prepared to go. As they started he sug-

gested, still significantly: "Who is twenty minutes late al-
ready? A gentleman of honor keeps his appointments re-
ligiously — religiously, get that?"

They were hurrying along the campus now. "I left father's
room promptly at three," defended Anne. "That old library
clock "

"Is exactly with the chime. It seems to me it takes you a
long time to walk half a block." He grinned at her — sig-
nificantly again. "If you're that slow on the count, I won't
have any trouble in beating you in love-games today," he
added, and wished he had not, for somehow that sounded
significant, too. So he began to bounce the balls alternately
against the ground.

"Better conserve your energy, then," Anne warned, "if
you're going to beat me. A year of wielding the birch should
have improved my strong right arm." But she hardly knew
what she said, and walked along in silence. Somehow all her
old "pep," physical and mental, deserted her. She must
think hard how to break the news to him. Well, she would
wait until the game. She threw herself into serving with all
her might. But she could not play! And so her most igno-
minious defeat in all their history went on record. Sunny
won two sets of love-games!

He approached her at the net with grave solemnity. "This
is too cruel. I won't play any more with you; it's too much
like the regulation but reprehensible habit of taking candy
from kids."

"Why!" exclaimed Anne, with airy indignation. "I merely
gave these two to you, so you wouldn't feel so badly next
set "

Sunny 's immoderate laughter interrupted her. "Har! Har!
She says she gave 'em to me! All right — I took 'em. Now
I'll take your racket, too, and we'll take a hike, but first you'll
take my sweater, or you might lake cold, and "

"You seem to be good at taking everything but sugges-
tions," cut in Anne, icily — a favorite pose, and one which
Sunny hugely enjoyed.

"Sure. I'll take suggestions, too. Got any for me?"

"The biggest one you ever saw." A wave of crimson
spread over her face.

"I've got a suggestion, too — this: S'pose you tell yours?
What is it?"

No answer.

"What is it?"

No answer.

"All right," he conceded. "I'll have nothing but silence,
and but very little of that."

Anne laughed — "I was just thinking."

Sunny clasped his hands and rolled his eyes piously to the
skies. "Thank heaven for that," he intoned, fervently.

But somehow the usual careless badinage fell flat. They
both sensed it and quit talking. How long they walked, with
only occasional remarks, they scarcely realized until Anne
called attention to the sunset.

"We'll watch it from here." Sunny pulled her to a log.
"This seat was made for us. Rest your back against the tree."

Anne obeyed as a child might have done. He looked at her
closely. "You're tired," he said, gently.

Something in his tone made a thrill quiver through her
body. "You're cold, too — poor girl ! Let me pull your collar
up." His fingers tenderly buttoned the throat of the sweater,
and when he had finished he let his arm remain around her
shoulder.

She made no motion of restraint, but sat with half-closed
(Continued on Page 26)

Page twenty-two

Agriculture

The Western Comrade

Forcing System in Farming

By Wesley Zornes

LANO points the way. The world is in the throes of
a death struggle. Germany is fighting for industrial
supremacy. The United States, due to her commer-
cial relations, has been drawn into the terrible vortex.

The food supply is dwindling. The people are facing a situ-
ation which means undernourished and underfed men, women
and children.

In this world crisis every eye is turned toward the farmers,
and appeals are being sent out in order that they may see the
seriousness of the situation. Every available means to increase
the food supply of the nation is being sought. Under the in-
struction of trained agriculturists, lots and even lawns are be-
ing planted to garden stuffs, and still the cost of living con-
tinues to climb.

hi spite of President Wilson's earnest appeal to the farmers
and the speculators in farm products not to speculate on the
nation's foodstuffs, every farmer is planting the crop that will
bring him the most returns.

Lots are being held at exorbitant rentals by real estate
sharks, gamblers in the nation's welfare. The South is still
planting cotton, because cotton will bring better returns than
other crops. The President's appeals go unheeded in the mad
rush for profit.

In spite of the urgent requests of the Department of Agri-
culture, a very large proportion of the land is standing idle.
Some of the best agricultural lands of the sunny Southland are
left as harborers of weeds. Land that should be growing from
two to three crops of vegetables yearly are only producing
one. Sometimes total failure rewards the poor serf or renter.

Fine potato soil is being planted to barley, for more ready
cash can be had from hay at the present price. Large walnut
groves are left totally barren. Wide strips of land that could
be producing foodstuffs are left to leach away, in utter dis-
regard for the fertility of the soil.

Farm owners, in a great many cases, live in the city and
rent. The renter must get as much as possible from the soil,
for rentals must be met. They naturally, sometimes through
ignorance, often wilfully, crop the soil until almost depleted,
and then move to another tract. In a great many cases no
attempt is made to replace the wasted elements of the soil. In
Virginia there are large tracts of land ruined by continued
tobacco growing. Similar conditions are prevalent in almost
any large agricultural region in the United States.

According to the Agricultural Year Book, 1 9 1 4, no Southern
state is giving sufficient attention to the producton of food-
stuffs, either for human beings or live stock. The state of
Texas imports annually more than fifty million dollars' worth
of wheat, corn and oats.

Individualism in agriculture has outgrown its usefulness. Its
utter disregard for soil fertility and its waste in the application
of labor has in the present crisis shown us that a more efficient
method of handling our soils must be evolved, or our country
will perish in the struggle for existence. Inefficiency and gross
neglect present themselves on every hand. The crisis is near.
We must produce more foodstuffs. The great agricultural
revolution is upon us. Our farms must be intensified. Machine
methods must be evolved, for, with war devastating the world,
the flower and manhood of our land will be called to the colors.
Labor will be scarce.

Large farm tractors will become an actual necessity. Al-
ready manufacturers have had an increased demand for trac-

tors, due to the prohibitive price of horse feed. The small
farmer will cease to be a factor. He will soon find himself in
competition with machine methods, and as the hand mechanic
has been replaced by machine labor, so will the small farmer
be forced to the wall by superior methods of production.

J. Ogden Armour, head of the meat trust, is advocating
socialized production in order to increase the food supply.
Secretary Lane threatened possible confiscation by the gov-
ernment of all unused lands in reclamation tracts of the West.

Agriculturists of the country favor a great industrial army,
which would be controlled by the government. Edward Bel-
lamy's great industrial army, it seems, is about to materialize.

As the war progresses, the great powers will be forced,
through economic stress, to adopt the most up-to-date and
scientific methods known to agriculture. Upon the agricultural
output depends the final outcome of the terrible struggle which
marks the beginning of the decay of individualism.

What is to be done? The nation stands helpless against the
fangs of the speculator and the land shark. Individual inef-
ficiency spells national failure. We have preacher-farmers;
doctors, lawyers and even school teachers have tried hard at
winning a sustenance from Nature.

Trained agriculturalists represent a helpless minority of the
great composite whole. Individually they are lost in the mael-
strom of prejudice and superstition that has befogged the
brains of so-called farmers for years. Collectively, their train-
ing can be used and transmuted for the good of all.

Through their direction waste places will bloom. Soils will
be adapted to the crops. Soils will be rebuilded. Great tracts
of wheat lands throughout the Middle West can, with methods
already evolved, double the yield. What ignorance has torn
down, science will rebuild. The ignorant doubting Thomas
who has an orchard full of weeds will be relegated to the
junk heap.

With experts at the head of every department, efficiency is
an assumed fact. Instead of mechanical and professional
farmers, Llano's Agricultural Department will be a department
of trained farmers. Llano's farm is a farm of specialization.
Rapidly specialists are heading every department. This idea
of specialization is growing, and not only will there be special-
ized farmers, but specialized workmen.

Out of chaos we have one guiding star. Llano stands as a
monument, around which will grow the great agricultural
future — Llano, our hope, our vision; the guiding hand of
progress, that points the way from industrial chaos into the
Great Co-operative Commonwealth of the future.

When is a Cow Profitable?

(J. W. Ridgway, Texas A. and M. College.)
One cannot too often emphasize the importance of every
dairyman keeping a record of the individual performance of
every cow in his herd. This subject has been worn threadbare
at every dairy meeting held during the last ten years. Never-
theless, dairymen must realize that it is the only means by
which they can realize their source of profits, and unless they
do this they are in the dark regarding their business, and no
individual or concern can prosper under such conditions. The
fact is outstanding that a cow producing under 200 pounds of
butterfat in a year is an unprofitable cow. In this connec-
tion, attention should be called to the value of the manure, a
by-product which is often overlooked.

The Western Comrade

Agriculture

Page twenty-three

News and Views in Agriculture

How to Plant Vegetables

(United States Department of Agriculture.)

ANY home gardeners wish to know whether it is safe
to plant any vegetables in the open ground while
there is still some likelihood of light frosts. To aid
these home gardeners, the specialists have worked
out the following grouping of the common vegetables accord-
ing to their ability, if planted in the open, to withstand spring
frosts. These directions do not apply, of course, to the plant-
ing of seeds in hotbeds or seed boxes to secure plants which
afterwards are to be transplanted.

Group 1 . — Plants not injured by a light frost. These may
be planted as soon as the soil can be put in good condition:
Cabbage, Irish potatoes, early peas (smooth types as distin-
guished from wrinkled), onion sets, and salad crops, such as
kale, spinach and mustard. At the same time start in seed
boxes in the house or in hotbeds tomatoes, eggplant, peppers
and cauliflower.

Group 2. — ^Vegetables which should be planted only after
danger of hard frost is over: Lettuce, radishes, parsnips, car-
rots, beets, wrinkled peas and early sweet corn.

Group 3. — These should be planted after all danger of hard
frost is past: String beans and sweet corn (late varieties).
A few early tomato plants may also be set out, but care should
be taken to protect them from any sudden chilly weather, by
providing a shelter of newspapers, boxes, etc.

Group 4. — This group should not be planted until all danger
of frost is past and the ground has thoroughly warmed up.
Included in this would be: Cucumbers, melons, squashes,
pumpkins, Lima beans, tomatoes, eggplant and peppers. Plants
of tomatoes, eggplant and peppers which have been grown in
boxes or hotbeds should be ready to set in the open at this
time.

In order to insure a steady supply of vegetables, crops like
beans, peas and lettuce may be planted every three or four
weeks, whenever the space is available. Some of these can be
planted in the spaces made available by removing the other
crops.

If your garden is small, do not attempt to grow potatoes or
late sweet corn. It is better to select half a dozen crops which
the family likes than to grow fifteen or twenty. If the size of
your plot is less than 40x100 feet, or 4,000 square feet, it
usually is not advisable to grow late potatoes or late varieties
or sweet corn.

Succulent vegetables of all sorts contribute bulk to the diet,
and so are valuable from the standpoint of hygiene, because
within limits bulkiness is a favorable condition for normal
digestion and also of importance in overcoming a tendency to
constipation. They are also among the important sources of
necessary mineral matters in the ordinary diet.

¥ * *

Rural Credits

(Dr. Ellwood Mead, University of California.)

The passage of the farm loan bank act creates a new era in
financing the farmer. The act grew out of the increasing
needs of the farmer for money. Farms have to be better
equipped, more money is needed to carry them on. It costs
more to grow fruit and other Kigh-priced crops than it used to
cost to grow wheat. In every way the farm requires more
money in its operation than it did twenty-five years ago. But

wfe have just come to realize that fact. We have passed a law
that looks after the interest and business and commercial en-
terprise which enables farmers to get money at a reasonable
price and on the right terms. But until the passage of the
farm loan act there was no means provided that would help
the farmer to get money at a reasoinable rate of interest or
on long enough time to enable him to pay it back out of the
earnings of his farm. This act will give the farmer forty
years of time, with the privilege of paying up at any time
within five years. It will enable him to pay it off in uniform
yearly payments, instead of having to pay it off in a single
large payment or in a few large payments. If, as seems prob-
able, money can be furnished at 5 per cent, then the addition
of the payment of 1 per cent on the principal, or 6 per cent
in all, will pay off a debt in thirty-six years. In other words,
under this act the farmer can pay off his debt, principal and
interest, with a lower annual payment than he now makes for
interest alone. It is expected that these banks will be ready
to do business this spring.

V ¥ V

Dried Pears Profitable

(F. G. Stokes, Horticultural Commissioner, Kelseyville, Cal.)

The demand for dried pears is certainly on the increase,
the markets ever widening and the price with an upward ten-
dency. The question as to whether or not to dry pears is gen-
erally settled by the price paid for the particular product,
there being much variation in the sugar content and texture
of the Bartlett, whether irrigated or non-irrigated, and by the
ratio of evaporation from ripe fruit to dried. Where pears in
one county dry out from four and five pounds green to one
pound dried, in many other localities the ratio is as high as
six and seven to one. The higher the ratio, naturally, the
higher the cost of manufacturing the dried ton for market.
Where it costs, without figuring on wear and tear of plant and
interest on investment, from $35 to $40 labor, etc., to turn
off each dried ton, in some other places it costs $50 or more,
assuming the same scale of wages to be paid; and then, on
the side, it might take one or two tons more of the fruit per
dried ton. For this reason alone, many counties find it more
profitable to sell their pears green to the canner or in nearby
cities or to ship in refrigerator cars to the Eastern markets.

Choosing Breed of Swine

(United States Farmers' Bulletin.)

There is no best breed of swine. Some breeds are superior
to others in certain respects, and one breed may be better
adapted than another to certain local conditions. The essen-
tial point is that after the farmer has once decided upon the
kind of hog to raise, he should stick to his decision and develop
the chosen breed to its highest possible standard. It is not
feasible for one individual to raise several different breeds and
bring them to perfection. In making his choice, too, the farmer
should be guided by the kind of breeds already established in
his locality. If he selects one of these, he is not likely to make
a mistake. . . . There are two distinct types of swine —
namely, the lard and bacon types. The principal breeds of the
lard type are the Poland-China, Berkshire, Chester White,
Duroc-Jersey and Hampshire. The principal breeds of the
bacon type are the Tamworth and large Yorkshire, both of
British origin.

Page twenty-four

Co-operation

The Western Comrade

Co-operation the World Over

Notes About the Chief Co-operatives Gleaned from Many Sources

The Extent of Co-operation in The United States.

It is roughly estimated that there are 870 co-operative stores in this
country. Only two out of the forty-eight states of the Union have been
reported as not having co-operative stores. Perhaps fifty of these are
prospering; the remainder are not on a firm basis, and are struggling
for life because of the inexperience and disloyalty of members within
the group and vicious competition on the outside. Notwithstanding these
drawbacks, however, the future for the co-operative movement in the
United States was never brighter.

The greatest success in the co-operative store movement has been at-
tained by the United Mine Workers in Illinois. The membership of these
stores consist of several different nationalities, yet complete harmony
reigns constantly. Twelve of these stores in one quarter did a business
of $200,000.00, and declared an average dividend on purchases of over
eight per cent. These Illinois stores are federated into what is known
as the Central States Co-operative Society, have a central auditing system,
plan to establish central buying, and intend to unite with the store so-
cieties of neighboring states.

Co-operation among the farming class is growing by leaps and bounds.
The Farmers' Educational and Co-operative Union is active in hventy-three
states and has three and a half million members. The purpose of this
organization is to encourage all forms of co-operalion. The organized
farmers in Oklahoma have a hundred successful co-operative stores. One
of the most important agrarian movements is the Non-Partisan League in
the Northwestern States, the purpose of which is to organize a general
revolt of the farming element against exploitation by affiliating with the
labor unions and by establishing agricultural co-operatives. This move-
ment is, perhaps, the most powerful in America. Co-operative marketing
organizations are springing up by the hundreds. In California, this move-
ment is best typified by the California Associated Raisin Company, the
California Fruit Growers* Exchange and the California Almond Growers'
Exchange.

Industrial or mechanical co-operation has not been so successful.
Usually this is due to the failure of the organizations to work in connection
with the organized consumer. Among the successful ones, however, can
be mentioned three glass companies, one boot and shoe concern, two
laundries, three barrel manufacturing companies, five bakeries and three
cigar factories. The Independent Harvester Company has several thou-
sand farmer members. Five successful silk co-operatives exist in Pater-
son, New Jersey. Three highly successful printing and publishing co-
operatives are operated by the Finns in Chicago.
» ♦ »

An Illustration of Practical Co-operation.

From Arcadia, Florida, comes an instance of the value of co-operation
and the broad spirit of mutual helpfulness which it inculcates. The orange
growers of that community are associated into an organization known as
the Associated Orange Growers. During February, a hard frost damaged
the orange crop, and many of the members would have secured nothing
for the year's work had it not been for the co-operative spirit shown by
the more fortunate ones. The extent of the damage was determined by
the Association, and sixty per cent of the value of the total crop was
voted to each member, regardless of the damage suffered by each indi-
vidual. Men who had not suffered were paid but sixty per cent of the
worth of their crop. Those who had no crop to sell were paid sixty
per cent of the value of the crop they might have had had no frost
injured it. The fortunate shared with the unfortunate, and each member
fared comfortably as a result of the year's work.

Effect of War on the Co-operative Movement

In considering developments likely to affect the general welfare of the
movement after the war, it is well that we should remember the things
that have gone before. For nothing else proves how very ably the co-
operative movement has kept its head, so to speak. Its cautiousness
may be said to be the chief factor of its stability. The outbreak of war
brought with it all the possibihties of an economic crisis ; commercial break-
down seemed imminent. The co-operative movement, however, remained
wonderfully true to its traditions, did much to avert a food panic, and
kept retail prices at normal levels in many places while its pre-war
stocks lasted. During the war it has further demonstrated the value of

working-class control of the means of life as a check to profiteering.
During 1915 some 210,714 new members joined the movement, taking
its total membership to close upon the four-million figure. Its sales in-
creased by fourteen and a half millions, while its total sales reached the
gigantic sum of one hundred and two millions. The financial position
of the movement is practically unaffected by the war. It fact, it may
claim to have been strengthened by the general prosperity of the move-
ment and the growing utilization by the Trades Unions of co-operative
banking facilities. No section of the nation has stood more firm, in
fact, all through the changes of the war than the co-operative move-
ment. Statistics prove it will emerge from the war considerably stronger,
in membership, finances, and one dares to add, moral purpose. — George
Stanton in Co-operators' Year Book, England.
¥ ¥ ¥

Shortage of Tin for Canned Goods.

All tin is likely to be commandeered by the English Government. All
co-operative societies using tins for packing and other purposes are
preparing for a future shortage. — The Producer, England.

9 if- !/■

Canadian Co-operative Apple Production.

Canadian apples today are known the world over, and, while the
industry is still in its infancy in some parts of the Dominion, it is well
established in others, as, for instance, in Nova Scotia, where for some
years past the organization of co-operative fruit companies has made
notable progress. There are now over thirty-two of these, and most of
them are in the combination known as The United Fruit Companies,
which probably handles something like half the season's apple crop of
the province. — Walter Haydn in The Producer, England.

Co-operation the Keystone of Civilization

Modern civihzation is based upon confidence and co-operation. Con-
fidence is the foundation upon which all modern business rests; co-opera-
tion, the keystone that unites the separate units and gives strength to
the whole structure. The progress and advancement of a certain article
together with its trade prestige or superiorities, are usually found in exactly
that degree that its producers may have co-operated to that end. — Cali-
fornia Almond Growers* Exchange.

» * »

Value of Growers' Organizations

The value of growers' organizations is no longer a matter for theoret-
ical discussion. It is a demonstrated, practical business fact, now in ac-
tual successful business operation. It is also not true that co-operative
business is extravagant and inefficient. This is a purely theoretical asser-
tion which "practical" men have parroted so often that they have hyp-
notized themselves into believing it. The chief wastages, extravagances
and crookednesses are, and always have been, in private business.
"The best-run agricultural marketing institutions in existence are the semi-
governmental Landwirtschaftsrath organizations in Germany, and the com-
pletely governmental currant cartel in Greece and coffee pool in Brazil.
Illiterate Russian peasants, in their political mirs, look after their farming
business better than their educated neighbors under private ownership.
If the evidence of facts means anything, it means that the traditional
business theory about private efficiency and co-operative inefficiency is
a pure hallucination. — Fresno Morning Republican.

* * *

Government Issues Bulletin on Co-operation

The importance of the modern co-operative movement is shown by the
fact that the United States Department of Agriculture has recently issued
a bulletin from the Office of Markets and Rural Organization which deals
exhaustively with the subject of co-operative stores in the United States.
The history of the movement is delved into, the plan of organization in
general treated comprehensively, and the methods of financing, crediting,
purchasing, selling and accounting discussed in a broad manner. The pub-
lication is written by J. A. Bexell, Dean of the School of Commerce, Ore-
gon Agricultural College; Hector McPherson, Director, Bureau of Mar-
kets, Oregon Agricultural College; and W. H. Kerr, Investigator in Market
Business Practice, Office of Markets and Rural Organizations, United States
Department of Agriculture. The bulletin may be secured by writing to
the Department for Department Bulletin No, 394.

The Western Comrade

Book Reviews

Page twenty-five

Reviews of Recent Readable Books ^^ ^- ^-tspa

"The Truth About the Medical Profession."

"The Truth About the Medical Profession" gives the views of an hon-
est physician, J. A. Bevan, M. D. Humor and sarcasm, ridicule and satire,
abound in the philosophical book. The introduction by the son of Dr.
Bevan, Mr. Gordon Bevan, and his notes constitute a large part of the
text. The bugaboos of the medical world are shown in broad daylight, and
the reader of this treatise will no longer fear the quackery of (he medical
leeches upon society.

The author bases his philosophy on economic study and disease
found to be in large measure the result of low wages, ignorance of the
people, and the need of the physicians to operate for practice on the
poor that they may filch large fees for similar operations on the ricli.
Operations, vaccination, the doping wth drugs, and the whole range of
medical hocus-pocus that helps to kill off the human race and keep the
people from getting their share of the world's goods, find an enemy who
intelligently dissects their hollow claims.

It is shown clearly that it is absolutely impossible for the medical pro-
fession to be honest and live. Dr. Bevan quotes examples of the criminal
ignorance where the medicine killed p?.tients — contending that medicine
hampers nature in its cures and any patient will recover far better without
than with the concoctions guessed at by physicians.

But it is by no means only as an exposure of the quackery of medicine
the book is worth while. Dr. Bevan and his equally gifted son have
caught a broad vision of democracy. They have brought to bear on their
philosophical studies a wide range of general information and clear intel-
lects. Hardly a phase of human activity is left out of the rapid-fire survey
of human society. The medical craft is only one of the many-sided citadel
of special privilege attacked by the Bevans. Their little book ought to be
vndely circulated. It is time humanity cast aside the hoary myths of the
Dark Ages. We laugh at the "medicine man" of the naked savage and
submit calmly to more silly and far deadlier practices on the part of our
own bungling physicians. "The Truth About the Medical Profession"
ought to circulate as freely as the Sanger propaganda and the Walsh re-
port. It is a sane, non-hysterical, economic, philosophical, human docu-
ment with an enlightening message. (Price $1. Published by the author,
914 Myrtle street, Oakland, Cal.)

* * *

"In the Claws of the German Eagle."

The first sane book on the Great War from the pen of a newspaper
correspondent has fallen into my hands. Albert F^iys Williams tells his
experiences of the early days of the conflict in 1914 in his sketches, "In
the Claws of the German Eagle." Mr. Williams spent seven years as a
social worker in the slums of Boston and New York ; so mere battle sights
were tame to him. He dedicates his book "to those who see beyond the
red mists of war." In our present state of national hysteria it will be
well to read this unbiased book by a cool-headed American.

He tells of the unavailing search of weeks in all Belgium for a bona fide
atrocity specimen. There were terrible evidences of the full horror of war.
but the atrocity victims were always "back in such and such a village, etc."

"Let no one attempt to gloss the cruelties perpetrated in Belgium," he
continues. "My individual wish is to see them pictured as crimson as
possible, that men may the fiercer revolt against the shame and horror
of this red butchery called war. But this is a record of just one observer's
reactions and experiences in the war zone. After weeks in tlfll contested
ground, the word 'atrocity' now calls to my mind hardly anything I saw
in Belgium, but always the savageries I have witnessed at home in America.

"For example, the organized frightfulness that I once witnessed in Bos-
ton. Around the strikers picketing a factory were the police in full force
and a gang of thugs. Suddenly, at the signal of a shrill whistle, sticks
were drawn from under coats and, right and left, men were felled to the
cobblestones. . . . If in normal times these men can lay aside every
semblance of decency and turn into raging fiends, how much greater cause
is there for such a transformation to be wrought under stress of war when,
by government decree, the sixth commandment is suspended and killing
has become glorified. At any rate my experiences in America make cred-
ible the tales told in Belgium."

Much of the author's aplomb came from his experiences with Gremberg,
a Belgian private. "If I had been born a Boche, I know that I would act
just like any Boche. I would do just as 1 was ordered to." "But the men
who do the ordering, the officers and military caste, the whole Prussian
outfit y "Well, I have it in for that crowd, but you see I'm a Socialist,
and I know they can't help it. They get their orders from the capital-

ists." . . . "Well, I suppose that you are pretty well cured of your
Socialism, because it failed, like everything else." "Yes, it did, but at any
rate the people are surprised at Socialists killing one another — not at the
Christians. And anyhow if there had been twice as many priests and
churches and la\vyers and high officials that would not have delayed the
war. It would have come sooner; but if there had been twice as many
Socialists there would have been no war."

A picture of Gremberg forms the frontispiece of the volume — one of the
many graphic pictures from war photographs. The writer is fair and
unprejudiced. He gives scores of intimate pictures of life in both the armies
of the Allies and of the Germans in those early days of the war. (New
York. E. P. Dutton & Co.)

* * *

"The Principles of Natural Taxation."

C. B. Fillerbrown, author of "A. B. C. of Taxation" and "Taxation,"
brings his subject to date in "The Principles of Natural Taxation." "show-
ing the origin and progress of plans for the payment of all public expense
from economic rent." The book contains portraits of Henry George, Ed-
win Burgess, Sir John Macdonnell and Thomas G. Shearman. Part I., "The
Authorities," deals with Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Patrick Edward
Dove, Edwin Burgess, Sir John Macdonnell, Henry George, Rev. Edward
McGlynn and Thomas G. Shearman. The second part treats of the fol-
lowing sidelights: "A Burdenless Tax: The Threefold Support Upon
Which the Single Tax Rests"; "Land: The Rent Concept — the Property
Concept" ; "Taxation and Housing : The Taxation of Privilege" ; '"Thirty
Years of Henry George, with a Record of Achievements"; Henry George
and the "Economists"; "The Professors and the Single Tax"; "A Cate-
chism of Natural Taxation." The appendix reviews briefly the theories
of the Physiocrats, Thomas Spence, William Ogilvie, Thomas Paine and
Herbert Spencer.

"The object of this compilation," writes Mr. Fillerbrown, "is to trace
the metamorphosis of the land question into the rent question ; of the
equal right to land into the joint right to the rent of the land; of the
common use of the earth into the collective enjoyment of ground rent ; of
the nationalization of land into the socialization of its rent; of private
property in land, including the private appropriation of its rent, into the
public appropriation of that rent without disturbance of the private own-
ership of land."

There is a great deal of matter that will be new to most general read-
ers. In view of the national indorsement of the Great Adventure cam-
paign in California to restore the land to the people immediately, the
volume should have a special national significance. (Chicago. A. C.
McClurg & Co.)

» » »

"Social Forces in American History."

A comrade in Kentucky a few years ago took A. M. Simons' "Social
Forces in American History" and James Oneal's "Workers in American
History" as his texts. It was nearly a year before the parents learned
what he was doing to their children. He is now out of the teaching pro-
fession. You can't have the truths of American history taught in the
American schools. You were taught a lot of lies cooked up to make you
patient slaves.

The People's College of Fort Scott, Kansas, is conducting a low-priced
course in American history, conducted by Mr. Simons, consisting of thirty
lessons. You can learn all about it in a booklet giving the outline of
the course by sending a card to the college. The studies are based prin-
cipally on "Social Forces in American History."

Recently I have looked over the revised edition of this volume. It
Is one of those books that ought to be in every home, for surely it Is worth
while for the working class to know the truth about American history.

Do you know what three Inventions destroyed feudalism? That most
of the "Revolutionary fathers," including Samuel Adams and George
Washington, were smugglers and land speculators? That the organized
labor movement of a century ago demanded universal suffrage and founded
our public school system? Why the first labor unions after the Civil War
were secret organizations? These and scores equally valuable are tolj
by Simons in his history. It Is based on the best researches of the lead-
ing college authorities, nad not one fact is in dispute. Yet not one school
In America except the People's College dares proclaim it as its textbook.
It is written in calm and scientific language, in scholarly style. (New York.
The Macmillan Company.)

Page twenty-six

The Western Comrade

Dearer Than Honor

(Continued from page twenty-one)

eyes, watching the dying colors of the sky. She had thought
it was going to be easy — but NOW !

Impulsively she reached out and took his hand. That
would make it easier. Suddenly she stiffened up, and slowly,
haltingly at first, she began the dreaded "suggestion." Then
fluently, eagerly, earnestly, she threw herself into her words,
for that was Anne's way. Unfolding her plan, she held his
startled, fascinated gaze, explaining, as she went, her reasons
for it. Then abruptly she stopped and dropped his hand.
She had poured out her impulsive plans and now she felt
cold. A dull feeling of pain surged over her, and mih the
fleeting of her impulse came the frantic wish that she had
not spoken. What could he think? If he would only say
something! She looked at him; the misery in her eyes was
matched in his.

"Anne!" His words seemed a cry, although he spoke
quietly. "Ever since you've known me you've been hurting
me. The time you spilled hot sulphuric acid in the lab, and
it burned through my tennis shoes to my instep; the day you
accidentally scratched my arm with your absurdly long finger-
nails; and when you scarred my face with your ridiculous
fencing. And all the time you've treated me like a baby, and
flinted with all the other fellows. But all that was nothing
to this — when you imply that you want to make a sacrifice of
yourself and marry me just to keep me from having to go to
war. Maybe I'm just a kid. But I'm old for my years, in
spite of what you all think. I'm more of a man than you
think. I'd rather die a thousand times than do that! Just to
keep me and father from being hurt! "

"You don't care, then?" breathed Anne, abashed at his
vehemence.

"About dying? No! When you feel that way. About
YOU, Anne? I've always cared! I think you knew that
even if I never told you. You wouldn't have taken me any
more seriously than the others. I am just that young upstart."

His bitterness stung her. She, too, was suffering. She
put her hand on his shoulder. "But Sunny — there's your
father; and I can't see any other way out if the 'selective
draft' takes the proposed form. If you go to war and get
killed, it will kill him. I told you everything he said. You
are dearer to him than his life — his honor. You don't like
the idea. But it might save his life. Your father. Sunny —
isn't HE as dear to you — as LIFE?"

"You know he is ! " he exclaimed, hotly, "and in honor I
should be willing to do this thing — since you wish it. But
you are forgetting the rest of what you said. My father is
dearer than honor, and even for honor's sake I could not
sacrifice YOU!"

Anne had not foreseen this. It was something terrible — yet
wonderful! For a moment she forgot her plea, and asked,
smilingly tremulous: "But the old Spanish idea. Sunny? T
had not loved thee half so well loved I not honor more!' "

"That is a theory! I don't believe it! If it is true, I am
a coward." He stood up and looked down at her. "Anne!
what are you doing?' He stooped t© pull her hands away
from her face. "Anne! Don't — please!"

She arose and, unashamed, let the tears fall down her cheeks.

"Don't, Anne ! " he begged. "You say you wish it, but it is
just one of your sympathetic impulses — perhaps a sense of
duty toward father and me. It isn't right. You don't love
me — I've known that too well! And I cannot let you do it —

even for father's sake. Such a sacrifice from anybody would
be horrible. From YOU, Anne, it vvould be intolerable ! "

"Sunny, dear." Her voice shook, but she met his eyes
squarely and she put both hands on his shoulders. "Maybe
you did know part of the truth before, but it's wrong, now.
I knew you pretty well — better than I knew myself; and, even
if I didn't admit it to myself, I did know that you cared for
me. . . . But I didn't know, till now, that I really cared
for you, too — that way."

The Socialist City

(Continued from page fourteen)

It must be remembered that women are as individual in
their tastes and abilities as men, only their expression has been
rigidly repressed into one channel by their economic slavery
through the ages. The fact that the girl very commonly "takes
after" the father, would be enough in itself to vitiate the
theory of the intrinsic conventionality of women. Relieved
of the thankless and unending drudgery of an inconceivably
stupid and inefficient system, by which her labors are confis-
cated and her burdens aggravated in every possible way, she
springs forward with astonishing elasticity and power. To
accuse her of lack of originality and organizing capacity is most
unjust. These manifestations have been imputed to her as
crimes. She has been most strictly drilled from babyhood to
isolation in the home and to conformity, while her brother was
stimulated to aggressive individuality by contact with the larger
world. In the Socialist City the home will no longer be a
Procustian bed to which each feminine personality must be
made to conform by whatever maiming or fatal spiritual or
intellectual oppression, but a peaceful and beautiful environ-
ment in which she will have leisure to pursue her duties as
wife and mother, which are now usually neglected in the over-
whelming press of cooking and cleaning.

She will also have fime in the intervals of her rightful
occupations, or when they are unfortunately denied her, for
the activities which are personal expressions, her individual
contribution to the welfare of the community.

Making Wood Pulp for Paper

(Continued from page fifteen)

brings us t** the drying process, which consists of a series of
hollow iron drums, thirty-eight in nuniber — one row of nine-
teen above the other, but not directly so, the edge of the upper
being over the center of the lower. These drums are some-
what longer than the sheet of pulp to be dried and are heated
on the inside vnth the exhaust steam from the engines.

As these drums revolve slowly the damp sheet of pulp passes
over them, first over the top one and then down under the
lower one, and so on through the series of drums in a con-
tinuous ribbon-like sheet of snowy whiteness. After the sheet
leaves the drums it is reeled on a shaft about sixteen inches
in diameter. As it is being reeled, two circular, knife-edged
disks cut the sheets into three sections as it is wound into a roll.

After the roll has acquired the proper size, the three sec-
tions are taken from the shaft on which they have been wound,
and each section is wrapped with the same material, cut in
proper dimensions for the purpose, and bound and tied with
heavy cord.

In this form the pulp is then shipped to regular paper mills,
where it is converted into paper for high-class magazines and
other higTi-class paper.

The Western Comrade

Page twenty-seven

First American Conference for Democracy

and Terms of Peace

R

EALIZATION of the futility of the convention of the
Socialist party held in St. Louis, April 7, and which
adopted a majority report that has already involved
prominent Socialists in trouble with the authorities,
has undoubtedly animated some of those prominent in thai
convention who are instrumental in calling the First American
Conference for Democracy and Terms of Peace, May 30,

Some of the cooler heads at the St. Louis convention
warned the convention of the danger in which they placed
themselves and their comrades in adopting and recommendmg
for circulation the majority report adopted at that time. The
"Milwaukee Leader" under date of May 19 in a news item
reports . . "United States authorities, without warrant or
observing any process of law, raided' the state headquarters
of the Socialist party of Indiana and seized all literature
bearing on war. . . The raid is thought to be due to a
speech made in the Senate of the United States by Hustings,
Wisconsin, when he bitterly attacked the majority report on
war and militarism of the National Socialist Convention."

The WESTERN COMEUDE, in editorials, pointed out the
danger contained in the majority report. Already the danger
has been made apparent. California representatives were un-
able to carry through their clearly outlined program of con-
structive measures, pertinent to the needs of the day and
built on the vital issues of the war.

The New York conference is assumed to be called by those
who realize that the Socialists of America have failed at the
moment of the supreme test. There is no other radical or-
ganization envisioned to the degree of being able to see
through the immediate issues of the day on toward the end
of the war with its reconstruction period. American SociaHsts
are denied, by the American government, the right to partici-
pate in the convention called to be he'd in Stockholm; pass-
ports will not be given them and severe penalties are threat-
ened for any American Socialists who defy the government and
take part. American Socialists have not justified the United
States government in believing they are wholly loyal and the
attitude will be unfavorable to them so long as this condition
prevails.

There is left, then, no organized movement in the United
States that is gifted with foresight to plan ahead. Therefore,
leading Socialists, radicals of other activities, and those prom-
inent in great social movements have united in calling the
conference. Invitations have been sent broadcast, as follows:

You are cordially invited to participate in the First American
Conference for Democracy and Terms of Peace, which is to be
held in New York City on May 30th and 31st.

The purpose of this conference will be to clarify public opinion
of the issues arising out of America's participation in the war ; to
devise means for safeguardmg American liberty and democracy: and
to formulate the demands of forward-looking Americans as to the
terms of the commg peace.

It is also hoped that from this gathering will result such co-
operation, co-ordination, and solidarity of the democratic forces of
this country as will make their voice most effective in the councils
of the nation.

The enclosed tentative platform will serve as the basis for the
discussions of the conference. It is presupposed that organizations
and individuals participating are in substantial agreement with the
principles set forth therein.

We eamesly request that you appoint delegates to represent your

organization at the conference. Kindly facilitate the administration
of the undertaking by a prompt reply.
Very sincerely your,
EMILY G. BALCH.

Former President, Boston Woman's Trade Union League
JOSEPH D. CANNON.

Organizer Inter'l Mine, Mill and Smelter 'Workers Union
MORRIS HILLQUIT,

Member National Committee of the Socialist Party.
RABBI JUDAH L. MAGNES,

The reason for the conference is given in the "Call to
Action," which states:

A CALL TO ACTION

It is now less than six weeks since the United States entered
the world war. In that short space of time the grip of militarist
hysteria has fastened itself upon the country; conscription is being
placed upon our statute books ; the pernicious "gag" bill is about
to be forced through Congress ; standards to safeguard labor,
carefully built up through years, have been swept aside; the right
of free speech has been assailed ; halls have been closed against
public discussion, meetings broken up, speakers arrested — and now
the danger of a permanent universal military training law confronts
us.

While all this military organization is going on in America,
rumors of peace come to us from Germany, Austria, Italy and
Russia. Shall it be said that we, the latest to enter the war, are
less concerned about the early establishment of a peace based oa
justice for all?

We call on all American citizens to unite with us in the First
American Conference on Democracy and Terms of Peace, at the
Holland House, on May 30 and 31, to discuss how best we can
aid our government in bringing to ourselves and the world a speedy,
righteous and enduring peace.

May 7, 1917.

A tentative program is announced, organizing and executive
committees have been appointed, and the support of broad-
minded, energetic, influential men and women throughout the
United States have been secured. The invitation is signed by:

James H. Maurer, Harrisburg, Pa. ; Victor L. Berger, Milwaukee,
Wisconsin; A. J. Boulton, Brooklyn, N. Y. ; James J. Bagley, Brook-
lyn ; Rose Schneidermann, New York ; John C. Kennedy, Chicago ;
Edward J. Cassidy, New York ; Joseph Schlossberg, New York ;
E Baroff, New York ; Henri Bereche, New York ; Roy Brazzle ;
Mary Kenney O'Sullivan, Medford, Mass. ; Arthur LeSueur, Kansas
City, Missouri ; Algernon Lee, New York ; James O'Neil, Boston,
Mass. ; Harry Laidler, New York ; Julius Gerber, New York ; Julian
Pierce, Washington, D. C. ; Job Harriman, Llano, California; Winter
Russell, New York ; Harry Weinberger, New York ; Rt. Rev. Paul
Jones. Salt Lake City ; Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Chicago ; Rev. Richard
W. Hogue, Baltimore, Md. ; Rev. Sidney Strong, Seattle, Wash.;
Rev. H. L. Canfield, Woodstock, Vermont ; L. Hollingsworth Wood,
New York: David Starr Jordan. Stanford University, California;
Simon N. Patten, University of Pennsylvania : Scott Nearing, Toledo,
Ohio; William I. Hull, Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania;
Harry L. W. Dana, Columbia University, New York ; Lindley Miller
Keasbey, University of Texas ; Harry A. Overstreet, New York ;
Rev. Irwin St. John Tucker, President Hobo College, Chicago ; Brent
Dow Allinson, Cambridge, Mass. : Grace DeGraff, Portland, Ore. ;
James McKeen Cattell, New York ; Randolph Bourne, New York ;
May Wright Sewall; Daniel Kiefer, Cincinnati, 0.; Amy Mali Hicks,
New York ; Frank Stephens, New York ; Mrs. Glendower Evans,
Boston, Mass.; Helena S. Dudley, Waltham, Mass.; Lenora Wame-
son, Kansas City, Mo.; Mrs. Lola Maverick Lloyd, Winnetka, 111.;
Mrs. Elsie Borg Goldsmith, New York ; Margaret Lane, New York ;
Edward Berwick. San Francisco, Cal. ; John Reed, Croton-on-
Hudson ; Edward T. Hartman, Boston, Mass. ; Mrs. L. C. Beckwilh,
Providence, R. I. : Miss Crystal Eastman, Crolon-on-Hudson ; Anna
F. Davies, Philadelphia, Pa,; Henry R. Linville, New York.

Page fwenty-eighl

The Western Comrade

Letters from Our Readers

Colonist for Twenty Years

Editor Llano Colonist: My first attention was called to Socialism in
leading about the Ruskin Colony in Tennessee some twenty years ago.
Thus my idea of co-operation and Socialism was linked from the begin-
ning. My first lessons in Socialism taught about the Co-operative Com-
monwealth and National Co-operation. 1 read the Coming Nation, the
Appeal to Reason and other literature descnbmg the workings of the
Ruskin Colony from its beginning to its untimely death in Georgia. I read
a paper two years, the name of which I have forgotten now, established
by a colony which flourished on the shores of Puget Sound many years
ago. I can't recall the name of that colony now. I was an earnest seeker
for their faith and an eager reader of their progress. My wife and daugh-
ter wanted to go. The pictures they sa^v of this colony life, showing the
blessings of co-operation, was a rising star in their lives. But alas ! this
colony, too, went down ! "Faith" in Socialism — died. But I hung my
faith upon political Socialism and fought the good but losing fight.

The Farmers* Union and many growers' associations came upon the
scene with their plans of co-operation, but these all fell far short of giving
the relief the world seeks.
Without going into detail

as to the failures of Socialist

efforts at co-operation, I will

say right here that unless the

Socialist party proves its

faith by its works, as you

and others are doing, it will

die a natural death. The

Oklahoma Socialist party, in

its last state convention,

adopted a report indorsing

all co-operative efforts, in-
side or outside the party.
How encouraging it is to

learn, afer all the dismal at-
tempts at co-operalion, of

the brilliant success at Llano !

Again the wife and children

ask to go, and we are

straining every effort to

make our desire a reality.

Tired and sick of the com-
petitive war, we hope soon

to dodge our enemy and flee

to the "City of Refuge" —

Llano.— G. M. Fowler, Okla.

ing, but little things I had thought of for years that I never heard any one
say, and it pleases me to read it in your paper. For years I have said the
house I was going to build would have a flat roof, and, while my friends
said I was crazy, your paper said it was the way Llano houses were to
be built. The common sense and the advanced spirit of the experiment
of Llano appeals to me wonderfully. It does my soul good to read in
the paper of the plans that are to be for the benefit of all. The com-
munities in which I have lived have been absolutely hidebound. No one
can or will do cuiything never done before, because no one else has ever •
done it. Your paper, tells us in Llano you are free from such bondage.

MRS. G. L. SHURICK, Ohio.
* * *

Thinks Everyone Should Subscribe

I received all the literature you sent to me, and, after reading almost
every word with great interest, I was very much pleased with the splendid
progress that is being made by the Llano colonists. It is indeed Inspiring
to know that in a short time such progress has been made towards the
great ideal and principles upon which our future civilization must be shaped.

In order to show the extent of my interest in the Llano Colony, I inclose

May Day Parade of the first comers to Llano, with inserts showing two groups of the early colonists of 1914-15.

Likes Llano Papers

When you print "Write

what you like best In our

paper" you are asking something rather difficult from us, who are not

accustomed to expressing ourselves in writing.

First, I like the spirit of Socialism breathed in every line; the points of
view and the conclusions to which Socialism brings one are much needed.
Most Socialists are converts and require the education your paper gives
how Socialism works out practically. I was in hopes you would give an
example of Meyer London, our only Socialist Representative. When the
war started he brought a measure before Congress to put an embargo on
foodstuffs going out of the United States. No one spoke on the subject,
and he was the only one who voted for it. Because he was a Socialist, he
had the vision and the conscience to stand for the Socialist principles, and
it is only now, after nearly three years, when the dcunage is done, that
Congress has waked up enough to wrestle with the subject.

Another thing I like about your paper is that it attends strictly to its
own business, which is to exploit Llano and Socialism. The usual news-
paper is of two kinds, both tiresome beyond endurance, and you have
avoided both these kinds — the city paper, with its encyclopedlac knowl-
edge, and its "mays" and "it is saids," which leaves a confused jumble
in the mind; and the country newspaper, which aims to have absolutely
nothing in it — not even the local news — for fear of making somebody mad.

Your paper is condensed and, while entertaining on account of the life
it expresses, it also gives us the world news, for which we pay for the
paper.

I don't know that it Is the way the paper "Is made up," as they say,
but it is the kindred spirit I find expressed in it; hardly worth mention-

money order for the WESTERN COMRADE and LLANO COLONIST.
Furthermore, I wish to declare my intention to apply for membership in
the near future. Fraternally yours, M. B., Arizona.

Much Interested in Llano

Dear Comrade: You wanted us readers of the Western Comrade to vote
upon the articles printed in the Western Comrade from time to time, and
express our preference, giving first, second and third choice, etc. Now,
comrades, I have no particular choice to give in what I have read in the
Western Comrade, for almost every article has met with my approval, and
to make a choice would, to my mind, be showing partiality among the
writers. There Is not an article in the Western Comrade but what I have
read, and I am so anxious to gel all the news that I can hardly wait from
time to time for the next issue to come. And, so that I might hear from
the Colony more often, I subscribed for the Llano Colonist, and by get-
ting the Colonist once a week It seems to shorten the time between each
issue of the Western Comrade. For my part I want to Lear from all, and
upon all things, that will show what the colonists are doing, and what is
in the minds of comrades, pertaining to the developing of all our ideals.
By writing and expressing our thoughts that come into our minds from
time to time, regardless of the correct way of expressing them, only tend
towards broadening our minds upon the things for which we are striving,
and often put a thought into another mind who can with more accuracy
express the thought so as to accomplish the desired result.

ROBERT S. DARNeX.

The Western Comrade

Page twenty-nine

Aditorial by the Circulation Manager

!an You Combine Practice With the Study

of Theory?

A SHORT time ago we tried out a
little experiment.

We wrote a letter to each of the
persons in the Grand Membership Cir-
culation Contest asking for their experi-
ences in getting subscriptions id the
Llano Publications.

And here is the argument that we
found our contest members met most
frequently:

"I already get so many Social-
ist papers that I cannot take an-
other; haven't time to read those
that I am already taking."

The Llano Publications are the only
ones in the country that tell of the
principles of Socialism being applied.

Now what would you think of a man
who went to church every Sunday and
said his prayers every night and de-
voutly and sincerely worshipped God,
but who refused to make an effort to
put the principles of Christianity into
general operation?

You would laugh at him, of course.

But stop a minute. What of the
Socialist who reads of the Socialist
theory, absorbs every word of the wis-
dom of Marx, knows the "Communist
Manifesto" by heart, is on the mailing
lists of many Socialist papers and mag-
azines, yet will not study the practice
of Socialism?

The Llano del Rio Co-operative Col-
ony is the practice of the principles of
Socialism. It makes no difference
whether you believe co-operative col-
onies can succeed or not, the fact re-
mains that virtually every Socialist
principle is in active, every-day use
in Llano today.

What's the use of learning all the
fine points of Socialism if you don't
make any attempt to put them into
practice? What would be the use of
learning all there is to know about

medicine if you would refuse to treat
a patient?

When any Socialist tells you that he
has so many Socialist papers that he
has no time to read any more, direct
his attention to the fact that he is
missing the fruit of all his study.

Make it clear to him that he is theo-
retically right, but ask him if he knows
for certain that Socialism will work.
Ask him how he could prove it to an
unbeliever.

In Llano we are practicing Social-
ism. No other paper in the country
can tell of the progress this handful of
brave Socialist pioneers are making.

You know how we respect the old-
time Socialists who went out and soap-
boxed on the streets, who got them-
selves put into jail because they were
Socialists, who sacrificed friends and
home and fortune and everything for
the sake of the principles they believed
in. They were courageous, stout-
hearted men and women.

But what of these modern Socialists
who have the courage to put into pres-
ent-day operation the things they be-
lieve in? Are they any less coura-
geous? How open-minded is the Social-
ist who refuses even to read of what
they are doing? How can he hope to
convince other people that Socialism is
practical and beneficent, when he will
not himself show faith in the thing he
stands for?

What can you expect of the uncon-
verted when Socialists themselves re-
fuse to investigate, or even to read of,
the progress of the Llano del Rio Co-
operative Colony which is demonstrat-
ing the things they have preached for
so many years?

These are not idle questions. They
are the questions that we expect our
readers to ask Socialists everywhere.
They are the questions that point the
difference between mere ineffectual

talk and purposeless opposition to ex-
isting conditions, and the positive po-
sition of really doing the things we
think are right and which we are ask-
ing others to accept as being right.

Socialists everywhere are discour-
aged, disgusted, hopeless.

But there is no reason to be. Our
principles are correct — Llano is prov-
ing that. It is the application of them
that the people are looking for. Our
method of teaching must be adapted to
the time. We have virtually graduated
the primer class in Socialism. The
people of the country are willing to
concede that Socialism is probably
right. But they demand proof.

They are now promoted to another
class. We must teach this new class.
The old propaganda they know. They
do not want it over and over again,
any more than a little child wants to
read the same book over and over.

Our opporhinity is greater than ever
before. The whole world is teaching
Socialism as never before. It is our
time to profit by it. But we must take
advantage of the conditions of the day
if we are to do this.

Llano is the example. It is the
most perfect and complete example of
co-operation in the world. It con-
vinces. We must direct the attention of
every Socialist to it. We must get
every Socialist to use it as an argu-
ment, the most convincing of all ar-
guments. And to do that it is neces-
sary to push the circulation of the
Llano Publications. Will you help?
Will you get just one Socialist of your
acquaintance to reading of the actual
practice of Socialism?

The COLONIST is 50c a year, or
$1.00 for a club of three. The COM-
RADE is 75c a year, or 50c in clubs
of four or more.

Both to one address are $1.00 a
year or 75c in clubs of four or more.

Canadian rates are $1.00 a year for
either the COMRADE or the COLON-
IST. No club rates apply outside of
the United States.

Page thirty

The Western Comrade

h

The Truth About the
Medical Profession

By John A. Bevan, M. D., Columbia University.

(Inventor of the Oesophagoscope)
Grand Ave. Temple Bldg., Kansas City, April 13, 1917.

". . . It impresses me very favorably indeed."

"I find a splendid philosophy underlying 'The Truth About the
Medical Profession," which goes far deeper than the exposure of
quackery, and its subtle sarcasm and humor are delightful. The
writer's mastery of his subject is apparent, as is his fundamental
democracy and knowledge of the ills which beset humanity."
—Extract from letter from FRANK P. WALSH, Chairman of
Federal Commission on Industrial Relations.

" 'The Truth About the Medical Profession' gives the views of
an honest physician. Humor and sarcasm, ridicule and satire,
abound in the philosophical book. . . The bugaboos of the
medical world are shown in broad daylight, and the reader of
this treatise will no longer fear the quackery of the medical
leeches upon society. . . Hardly a phase of human activity
is left out of the rapid-fire survey of human society. . . The
book ought to be widely circulated. . . It is a sane, non-hys-
terical, economic, philosophical, human document with an enlight-
ening message." — Extracts from review in OAKLAND WORLD,
May 4, 1917.

RYAN WALKER, the well-known cartoonist, writes: "I have
delayed in acknowledging 'The Truth About the Medical Pro-
fession," because I wanted to read it carefully. I enjoyed your
caustic and keen satire, and I only wish that you could get a
wide circulation for your showing up of the fakes and humbugs
of the medical profession.""

One Dollar a Copy

Order from the LLANO PUBLICATIONS. Llano, Calif.

Wanted

YOUNG MAN, about to take up residence in Los Angeles,
wants FURNISHED ROOM with congenial private family. Ref-
erences given. Please address, stating rent by month,

E. Geist, 427 Investment Building, Los Angeles.

What Are You Good For?

Did you ever try to find out?

Are you employed at work for which you are best fitted?

Do you KNOW or are you GUESSING?

Your children — what will you advise them to do?

The science of Character Analysis will answer the questions you have
asked yourself. It is not fortune telling. It is not guess work. It tells you
what you are fitted for and gives you the reasons. It tells you why
you have not succeded in what you have attempted and will show you in
which lines you can hope to succeed.

An analysis of yourself will cost you something and it is worth many
times what it costs; but information about it — that is free. Just write:
"Send me free information about Character Analysis and Vocational Fit-
ness." Write your name and address very plainly. Send it to:
P. 0. Box 153, Llano, California

CLASSIFIED ADS

Rales: 25c a line for one insertion; 15c a line thereafter. Twelve words
to the line. Advertising payable in advance.

Ocean beds become vast fertile plains.
even deserts bloom. Deductions solidly based
ross Publishing

"THE NEW EARTH."

Earth watered from withm

upon divine laws. Fifty cents,

Nuevitas, Cuba.

no stamps. Ci

House,

JJA

Law Book Free

O TUDY LAW, and become the man of power in your com-
^^ munity. The farmers of North Dakota captured the State
Government, and found that they needed law-trained men in
office to fight the big interests which have their lawyers in the
Legislature to make their laws, and in the Courts to defend
and interpret them. There are opportunities awaiting YOU.
Get ready for them — study Law at home in your spare time.
We prepare you for the Bar examination. Guarantee bond for
refund of money if dissatisfied. Degree of LL. B. conferred.
Hundreds of successful students enrolled. Fourteen-volume Law
Library upon enrollment. Low cost — easy terms. Be indepen-
dent. Be a Leader. Write today for free law book — "Law and
the People."

THE PEOPLE'S COLLEGE, Dept. D,
FORT SCOTT, KANSAS.

Reduced Freight Rates

on Shipments of

Household Goods

from all Eastern points

to California

Members of the Llano del Rio Colony will find it especially
advantageous to raake their shipments through the

JUDSON Freight Forwarding Co.

443 Marquette bldg, Chicago; 324 Whitehall bldg. New York,
640 Old South bldg, Boston; 435 Oliver bldg, Pittsburg; 1537
Boatmen's Bank bldg, St. Louis; 518 Central bldg, Los Angeles;
855 Monadnock bldg, San Francisco. WRITE NEAREST OFFICE.

■Illlllllllllllllllllllll

Can You Reduce Weight? 1

Information regarding my Obesity Treatments is contained in a ^

little booklet and consists of fully explained systems of dieting, exer- g

cises, bathing, manipulative movements, and various other essentials g

to effect the desired results. Persistency in this common sense and =

proved treatment will surely bring results in your case as it has in g

others. No drugs are used; it is a natural and beneficial way of g

reducing flesh. It gives full details for daily conduct. In sendmg P

remittances, state what portion you particularly wish to have re- g

duced and emphasis will be given as to what treatments will prove g

most beneficial. =

Full $5.00 Treatments, $3.00 Mrs. C. M. Williams, Llano, Cal. I

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FOR SALE.— BREEDING RABBITS. BELGIANS. NEW ZEALANDS, AND
Flemish Giants. We can supply all ages up to eight months. For further
information address Rabbit Department, Llano del Rio Colony, Uano. Col.-

Telephone Home A-4533

1

HARRIMAN

61 LEVIN

Attorneys at Law

921 Higgins

Building

Los Angeles,

Cal.

The Western Comrade

Page thirty-one

June 30 Closes the Contest

This is the month to get in your best work.

The results have been gratifying. Thou-
sands are reading of the Colony who had
never before heard of it.

Discouraged Socialists have seen the dawn
of a new hope. Sane methods of educating
the people to Socialism have inspired con-
structive Socialists with new zeal.

Non-Socialists have been interested in the
theory of Socialism through reading of the
success of applied principles. Concentrated
Socialist effort instead of scattered, sporadic
work is achieving results.

It is impressing the reading, thinking pub-
lic.

Now for a Whirlwind Finish

The contest began with the beginning of
1917; it closes when the year is half through,
June 30.

Workers throughout the country are
spreading the story of "Co-operation in
Action."

As soon as possible after June 30 the
premiums will be awarded.

Some one will get a membership.

Someone else will get half a membership.

Others will be well rewarded for their
efforts in the behalf of Socialism.

Now is the time for every contestant to
do his part. No matter whether a prize is
the reward, or whether the only reason is
to spread the news of Socialist achievement,
let's work to make June the biggest month
of all.

Let's have the story of Socialism in Prac-
tice going to hundreds of new readers as a
result of June work.

Will you do your part?

Literature for Free Distribution

The Llano Publications have just had printed in the Llano shop
a number of leaflets for free distribution.

^e ask your co-operation in getting them before the people
to direct their attention to Llano and "Co-operation in Action."

Here are the titles ; send for as many of each as you can dis-
tribute to advantage, ordering them by number:
No. 1. Civil Life or Uano Ufe? No. 6. WiU Your ChUdren Fol-

No. 2. Socialism is Succeeding iu

Uano Today.
No. 3. Age Limit a Tragedy,
No. 4. Is Thb Socialism?
No. 5. Socialism in the Making.

THE LLANO PUBLICATIONS. LLANO. CAL

low in Your Footsteps?

No. 7. Llano del Rio Co-opera-
tive Colony Succeeds.

No. 8. Watch Co-operation in
Action !

Want

ed-

■A C

o mr ad

e

to take over a thirty-acre ran

ch and

provide for

two

old

people

a few years, and have

the farm for

pay-

A little

capital and

good reference

required.

.Address

S. Whipple,

R.F.D.

No. 1,

Box 25, El

Centro,

Cal.

Llano Job Printing

The Llano del Rio Printing and Publishing Department is now
equipped to handle job printing.

Cards, leaflets, booklets, stationery, etc., will be handled in
a satisfactory manner, and at prices which will compare more
than favorably with those found elsewhere.

All work %vill be given the imion label imless otherwise re-
quested. Every employee is a Socialist and a union man.
The Llano Pablications^ Llano, California

WANT JAN. 1914 COMRADE!

q Tha files in the office of the WESTERN COMRADE lack the
JANUARY, 1914, number. Anyone having a copy will please
communicate with the Western Gjmrade, Llano, Cal.

announcing
another

$2000 contest

fir^ prize— a LLANO MEMBERSHIP
second prize — 500 shares Llano stock
third prize — 200 shares Llano stock
fourth prize — 100 shares Llano stock
5, 6, 7, 8th prizes — 50 shares each, Llano stock

other special premiums to all who
send in more than 10 subscriptions

Contest Commences July 1, 1917

and continues until Dec. 31, 1917

The Llano Publications have secured stock to be running, the new one will begin. All subscriptions

used in the Second Grand Membership Circulation received during the last two weeks of June may

Contest. be credited on the new Contest, IF SO RE-

The success of the Contest started in January and QULSIED.
which closes June 30th was great enough on May 1 st Send in at once for literature and supplies, for

to justify holding another, and plans were made at instructions and suggestions.

that time to announce it in the June WESTERN Apply at once to be enrolled as a contestant in

COMEvADE. the new Contest. Be all ready to start at the earliest

The day following the close of the Contest now possible moment.

Write at Once for Full Particulars

get an early start — begin at once

The Llano Publications, Llano, California

July 1917 Price 10c

^^ ^^^ ^,; ^'— ^— I ■ ^^ ^^cj no^^ ^o ^OOP£Fl/\ri^ ^

Constructive Editorials by Job Harriman

Llano — Community of Progress 3

By Robert K. Williams.

,^.. Quo Vadis? 9

By Dr. John Dequer.

The Play House (Fiction) |0

By Helen Frances Easley.

The Co-operative Movement in Great Britain 12

By George Grazier.

■^ -df^ ^9 Was Schmidt Guilty? |5

Third Installment of Job Harriraan's Address to the Jury.

^ jmri^-^^ ^^am ^^^ Socialist Party — Where Is It? 17

. '^- "^BtTP '^'' ^^' '^'='="=^^5 Recent Phases.

News and Views in Agriculture 18

Co-operation the World Over 19

What Thinkers Think 20

Reviews of Recent Readable Books 21

By D. Bobspa.

^Jl

The Gateway To Freedom

Through Co-operative Action

THE LLANO DEL RIO CO-OPERATIVE COLONY is located in
the beautiful Antelope Valley, in the northeastern part of
Los Angeles County, Southern California. This plain lies
between the San Gabriel spur of the Sierra Madres on the south
and the Tehachapi range on the north. The Colony is on the north
slope of the San Gabriel range. It is almost midway between
Palmdale, on the Southern Pacific, and Viclorville, on the Santa
Fe railroad.

The Llano del Rio Co-operative Colony is made up of persons
who believe In the application of the principles of co-operation
to the widest possible extent. Virtually all of the residents are
Socialists. It is a practical and convincing answer to those who
have scoffed at Socialist principles, who have said that "it won*!
work," who have urged many fallacious arguments. In the three
years since it was established, the Colony has demonstrated thor-
oughly the soundness of its plan of operation and its theory. To-
day it is stronger than ever before in lis history.

GENERAL INFORMATION

The Llano del Rio Colony is the greatest Community enterprise
ever attempted. It was founded by Job Harriman, May 1st. 1914,
and is solving the problem of disemployment and business failure.
It offers a way to provide for the future welfare of the workers
and their families.

An abundance of clear, sparkling water coming from mountain
springs is sufficient to irrigate thousands of fertile acres. The
climate is mild and delightful, the soil is fertile, and markets are
not far distant.

The Llano del Rio Colony is a horticultural, agricultural, and
stock-raising enterprise, with such manufacturing as will supply the
needs of the colonists, with perhaps something to sell when the
Colony has grown.

It is a perfect example of Co-operation in Action. No community
organized as il is, was ever established before.

The purpose is to solve the problem of unemployment by provid-
ing steady employment for the workers; to assure safety and com-
fort for the future and for old age; to guarantee education for the
children in the best schools; and to provide a social life amid sur-
roundings better than can be found in the competitive world.

It has more than 800 residents, making it the largest town in the
Antelope Valley. More than 200 children attend the schools. Part
of the children get meals at the school ; some live at the Indus-
trial school all the time. The Montessori school is in operation,
taking the children from lYi to 6 years of age. A new school
building is soon to be built on the new townsite. The County
school and the Colony Industrial schools are both in operation.

The Colony owns a fine herd of 125 Jersey and Holslein cattle,
100 head of young stock are on the range, being heifers and calves
up to 2 years of age. Over 100 head of horses and mules, in-
cluding colts, are owned by the Colony. These, with the tractors
and caterpillar engine, four trucks, and numerous autos, do the
hauling and the work on the land.

A recent purchase of Duroc-Jersey sows gives the Colony thirty-
eight registered high-class breeding sows and two splendid boars, the
nucleus of a great development along this line. Many new pens
have been built. Registration will be kept up and the raising of
fine hogs made one of the leading industries. There are also some
line Berkshires, and a large number of grade sows.

Much nursery stock has been planted, a vineyard of 40 acres put
out, and many fruit trees set this spring. The Colony has more
than 400 acres of orchards.

Community gardening is successful, and an increased acreage
will be put in each year.

The ideal is to farm on an extensive scale, using all manner of
efficient labor saving machinery and methods, with expert and ex-
perienced men in charge of the different departments,

Llano possesses more than 668 stands of bees. They are cared

for by expert bee men of long experience. This department ex-
pects to have several thousand stands in a few years.

The Colony has secured timber from the San Gabriel Reserve,
and has a well equipped sawmill. Lumber worth $35 to $40 a thou-
sand costs the Colony only a few dollars a thousand.

Social life is delightful, baseball and football teams, dances, pic-
nics, swimming, hunting, camping, all being popular. A band, sev-
eral orchestras, a dramatic club, and other organizations assist in
making the social occasions enjoyable.

Alfalfa does extraordinarily well at Llano. Much has been plant-
ed and the acreage will be increased as rapidly as possible. Six
good cuttings a season can be depended on. Ditches lined with
cobblestone set in Llano lime, making them permanent, conserve
water and insure economy. They will be built as fast as possible.
A square mile has been set aside for the new city. With the
sawmill running, the lime kiln producing a very superior lime, and
with sand and rock abundant and adobe brick easily manufactured,
the time is near when permanent buildings will be erected on the
new site. It will be a city different in design from any other in the
world, with houses of a distinctively different architecture. Houses
will be comfortable, sanitary, handsome, home-like, modem, and
harmonious with their surroundings, and v^nll insure greater privacy
than any other houses ever constructed. They are unique and de-
signed especially for Llano.

LLANO INDUSTRIES AND INSTITUTIONS

Among the industries of Llano, to which new ones are con-
stantly being added, are: Printshop, shoe shop, laundry, cannery,
cleaning and dyeing, warehouse, machine shop, blacksmith shop,
rug works, planing mill, paint shop, lime kiln, saw mill, dairy, cab-
inet shop, nursery, alfalfa, orchards, rabbitry, gardens, hog raising.
lumbering, publishing, transportation (autos, trucks, tractors), doc-
tors' offices, woodyard, vinegar works, bakery, fish hatchery, bar-
ber shop, dairy goats, baths, swimming pool, studios, two hotels,
drafting room, post office, commissary, camping ground. Industrial
school, grammar school, Montessori school, commercial classes, li-
brary, women's exchange, two weekly dances, brass band, mandolin
club, two orchestras, quartets, socialist local, jeweler.

PLAN OF ORGANIZATION

Following is the plan which has proven successful: Each share-
holder agrees to buy 2,000 shares of capital stock. Each pays
in cash or installments, $1,000. Each pays in labor, $1,000. Each
receives a daily wage of $4.00, from which is deducted $1.00 for
the stock he is working out. From the remainder comes his living
expenses. Whatever margin he may have above deduction for stock
and living expenses is credited to his individual account, payable out
©f the surplus profits of the enterprise. If an installment member
falls 111. is disabled or dlsemployed. the Colony gives him every op-
portunity to recover and resume payments. In no case will he be
crowded. If he finds it impossible to resume payments, we will,
upon request, issue stock for the full amount he has paid. This is
transferable and may be sold to his best advantage. In this we will
endeavor to assist wherever practicable. Corporations are not
allowed by law to deal in their own stock.

HOW TO JOIN

Write today for an application blank, fill it out and send
together with a remittance of $10 or more to secure your member-
ship. You can then arrange to pay $10 a month or more until
you can so adjust your affairs that you can make final pay-
ment and join your comrades who have already borne the first
brunt of pioneering.

Address Communications regarding membership, general informa-
tion, etc., to the

Membership Department

Llano del Rio Company

LLANO, CALIFORNIA

Political Action

Co-operation

Direct Action

The Western Comrade

Devoted to the Canse of the Workers

Entered as second-class matter November 4th, 1916, at the post office at Llano, California, under Act of March 3, 1879.

PUBLISHED EACH MONTH AT LLANO, CALIFORNIA.
JOB HARRIMAN Managing Editor. «^^ ^ FRANK E. WOLFE Editor.

Subscription Rate — 75c a year; Canada $1. Single Copies 10c; clubs of 4 or more (in U. S.) 50c. Combination with LLANO COLONIST $1.
Publishers and others are invited to copy at will from the WESTERN COMRADE, but are asked to give credit. Nothing copyrighted unless so stated.
In making change of address always give your former one so that the mailing department may be certain that the right name is being changed.

VOL. V.

LLANO, CALIFORNIA, JULY, 1917

No. 3

Editorials «

y Job Harriman

GREAT excitement prevails everywhere over the food
situation. As time goes on the excitement will increase
until it develops into a spasm centered in the abdominal re-
gions. A food famine is as inevitable as the tomorrow is to
come. Yet many Congressmen not only oppose conscription
of food, but they are opposed to a clause»in the food bill which
would enable the federal authorities "to find out exactly how
much food there is in the country, where it is stored, and who
owns it." They fear that "such powers will be destructive of
individual liberty and will violate the sanctity of property."

Individual liberty and the sanctity of property have already
been violated. In fact, there is no longer any such animal as
the sanctity of property. When Congress passed the conscrip-
tion law, by means of which two million men may be taken
even against their will, they dealt a death blow to the sanctity
of private property. If men may be called contrary to their
will and forced to bear arms, surely property of every kind
may and will be seized with which to feed and maintain these
same men while at war.

Is it possible that members of Congress think that property is
more sacred than human life? Or is it true that the law does
not reach their lives and that they wish also to hold on to
their property? Some are suggesting that the merchant should
only make a reasonable profit. Why a profit at all? Are the
poor soldiers, whose lives are being taken, getting a reasonable
profit? Are they getting anything?

Is it not time that a dead level be struck? Shall we not
treat man as man and nothing more? Is life dearer to the
man who has property than to him who has none? If there
is any difference in the anxiety of the rich and the poor, it is
not due to the sanctity of their lives, but in the "sanctity" of
their property. He who believes in the sanctity of property,
being the owner, should go to the front and defend the sanctity
of property by the strength »f his right arm. Why should he
be permitted to stay home and hide, cowardlike, behind his
property?

The question of the hour is a question of service. This will
continue to be the question as long as the war lasts. Property
and person will be seized. If any favor is shown, it should

be shown to persons and not to property. It is more human
to save man than to save property. Then, too, live men will
produce and replace property, but property will mold and
decay without the constant help of the hand of man.

This war sprang out of the sordid greed of man for profits,
and it will last until the pain and the anguish of the wounded
and bleeding millions shall have smothered and buried sordid
greed and melted men's hearts and souls with sympathy and
love and inspired them with a persistent passion for mutual
aid. This is the day of reckoning of private property. When
the clouds of war shall have rolled away private property will
have become a thing of the past. Common property and
mutual interests will have come as a healing balm to the
hearts of men, and with it the lion and the lamb will lie down
together and men will dwell in peace forever.
o

EVERY industry is a little monarchy. Every owner of an
industry insists upon running his own business as he sees
fit. He insists upon buying labor as cheap as he can, and
using it each day as long as he can.

These are the necessary sequences arising from private
property. Competition all but compels the enforcement of
these rules. Everything tends to induce them, and to support
the owner in their enforcement.

The owner of the poorly equipped and less efficient industry
is compelled by necessity to enforce these rules, while the
owners of more efficient factories are induced to enforce them
by the enormous accruing profits.

These owners, possessed of economic power, play such a
part in the elections that they succeed in electing men of their
own views to the Legislature. These legislators enact these
rules into laws, and thus the state or government becomes a
composite of the little monarchies.

Militarism is, therefore, the child of private property, and
has all the vitality of the industries that exist under its sway.

It is in the industries that lies the secret of the tremendous
vitality of the German and English imperialism and the unstable
and low vitality of Russian imperialism.

Germany, England and France are industrially developed

Page four

Editorial

The Western Comrade

to high efficiency. Russia's industrial development is in its
infancy. Their respective imperiahstic vitaHty is measured
accordingly.

With her 200,000,000 people her militarism does not com-
pare in vitality even with that of France. Give her fifty years
of individualistic development and she will sweep over Europe
like a tidal wave.

The United States possesses tremendous imperialistic vital-
ity. Its industries are developed in many instances to the
highest efficiency, yet one fatal weakness will develop in our
European campaign. It seems to have escaped the attention
of those directing our forces. Surely, if they had considered
it they would have paused longer. They forget that the field
of battle is three thousand miles from our seat of supplies and
the ocean is swarming with submarines. True, our necessities
will compel a much higher and more efficient form of industrial
and agricultural organization, but, however efficient it may
become, it cannot, in our opinion, overcome this enormous
handicap. The distance is too great.

Far wiser were we if we should tell England to draw upon
her colonies for reinforcements, and tell Russia to pour in her
men while we organize a mechanical and agricultural drive and
thereby furnished food for them all. It is to be feared that
the terrible slaughter that must take place along the trenches,
accompanied by an enormous loss of life that is almost alto-
gether unavoidable, by the submarines sinking our transports,
may result in an uncontrollable reaction as soon as a food
shortage develops. Were the course suggested above followed,
there could be no shortage of food, and hence no reaction.

THE position of the Socialists regarding the war is generally
misunderstood. The fact that Socialists are opposed to
this war is immediately construed to mean that they are pro-
German and are opposed to assisting the Allies. This con-
struction is made by some Socialists who have been prominent
in our movement as writers, but whose judgment has never
been taken seriously by the party.

Charles Edward Russell, who was strongly in favor of the
Syndicalist school in 1912, now leaves that school, the most
radical anti-war faction of our party, and goes off almost
alone into a pro-Ally war campaign. There are several
others of the same type. They will not have a following
either of their former factional associates nor of the more
constructive faetion of the party.

The real reason why the Socialist party is opposed to this
war lies in these facts:

1 . That they look upon this as a war between the powers
for the domination of the world's commerce. In that they
feel that they have no interest. There is, however, diversity
of opinion on this point. They all oppose imperialism, believ-
ing that imperialism arises out of capitalist institutions, or at
least out of private control of economic conditions.

2. The Socialists of the world have met in international con-

ventions for years; they look upon each other as comrades
in the same cause; they are bound together by a common
literature, a common interest, a common feeling of real friend-
ship and brotherhood such as is known only among the op-
pressed, and the thought of going to war and shooting each
other is unbearable. If there is an organization on earth that
fchould be regarded as conscientious objectors, it is the Social-
ists of the world. All national lines are to them merely geo-
graphical lines. Their brothers in Russia, or Germany, or
France, or Austria, or Italy, are as dear to them as their
brothers in New York, or Massachusetts, or Illinois, or Cali-
fornia. They are separated only by geographical lines. Our
race prejudices have long since perished. In the light of this
fact, and of the further fact that we have always fought brute
force as a means of building society (but have always advo-
cated brotherhood and peace) , can the late Peace Conference
be understood.

Every international Socialist should be exempt from inter-
national military duty. He has a far deeper feeling and, if
forced to military duty, would suffer greater pangs of grief
and conscience than any religious sect on earth.

HOW strenuously all of the papers are engaged in dodging
the inevitable! But, dodge as you will, the hour has
come and you must pay the price of your wrongdoing. You
are trying to eat your cake and keep it. Before you are
through you will find it an impossible task. Eat it you must —
but keep it you must not. You wanted the war that you might
make money out of it; but, alas! you have the war, and its
necessities will consume both your money and your privilege
of making money.

Come, capitalist neighbor, let us reason together. This is
your government, isn't it? You have made the laws, haven't
you? You are satisfied with the government's defense of
your property, aren't you? You are making money out of
the high prices of everything, aren't you?

Now, when the government called for soldiers, they did not
volunteer. The government believed conscription was neces-
sary, and so did you, didn't you? And conscription became
law.

The government needed money to carry on the war, didn't it?

It issued bonds and offered them for sale, and you approved
of it, didn't you?

It wanted money for two purposes:

First — ^To pay the men and to loan money to the Allies.

Second — ^To buy munitions and food.

Again you thought this was right, and again you approved,
didn't you?

Now hold your breath. Your cake is going. The govern-
ment will conscript the money you have made while prices
were high. You will not buy bonds vwth it. You think the
Allies are bankrupt, don't you ? You are afraid to buy bonds,
aTen't you? You are afraid your own government will become

The Western Comrad«

Editorial

Page five

bankrupt in its effort to finance the Allies, aren't you? That
IS the reason you will not buy bonds, isn't it?

That is precisely the reason why the government will be
compelled to conscript your money, isn't it? If this war is
right, conscription of your money is right, isn't it?

But this is not all. Prices are soaring so high that the pro-
ducers and gamblers in merchandise and food are consuming
all the money that the government is getting for the bonds it
sells. Hence it will have no money, if this continues, with
which to buy food, or pay soldiers, or loan to the Allies. But
if the government fixes prices the farmers and others vwll quit
producing, won't they? You would not blame them for quit-
ting if there is no money in it, would you?

But what is the government to do ? It must have money to
pay men, and good cheap food to feed them and the
Allies, and money to buy munitions, and money to loan to
the Allies.

What must she do now? She will be compelled to conscript
the food, and the resources, and the men to operate the
resources, won't she? Your money will be conscripted, won't
it? Your privilege of getting money by producing or by sell-
ing merchandise for more than it cost will be taken from
you, won't it? And that is right if the war is right, isn't it?
Now hold your breath.

That is State Socialism. Before you would surrender to
it, you required millions of men to be murdered in the trenches.
Do you not see that your greed has led to the most terrible
crime of all the ages? And will you still cling to your money
and force the war to continue? This war will not end until
capitalism is consumed by the all-absorbing forces of this
war, and the hearts of men are melted like shot in this terrible
crucible and merged in brotherly love.

IN TIMES of war the feelings and forces that make for peace
are all but forgotten. Those who are involved in wars, and
especially those who are directing the military force, become
lost and so absorbed by the surging power of which they are
a part that all opposing ideas and forces seem to them to be
wrong. They become the more convinced that the opposition
is wrong because, temporarily, they have the power to crush
or overcome it. They forget that the desire for peace is an
abiding and persistent urge. The more opposition there is to
peace and to peaceful measures, the more peace is desired.
The finest mental and heart forces of the world are for peace.
They stand on the brink of the trenches, the tomb of six million
men, and cry with unutterable anguish: "Is it not enough?"
"Are we fiends incarnate?" "Are we maniacs indeed?" "Is
there no love left in our hearts?" With a deaf ear, the com-
manding powers moves millions of men in a constant stream
to the brink, and pushes them over into the slaughter and to
death. Once, could be forgiven; but what is to be said of
those who force the butchery of men, day after day, week
after week, month in and month out, year after year, and

still cry for more blood, more arms, more men to bleed and
die?

And shall we be blamed for demanding that our government
lay down its arms? Do we hear them say there is no escape?
That they must fight? That conditions have forced, and are
still forcing, the issue?

True it is, that this war is the result of the economic con-
ditions prevailing in the world. And have the powers, at this
late hour, just come to realize this terrible fact? Realizing it,
are they still blind ? Do they hope to find safety in implements
of war, in the grip of men whose hearts are inspired by greed,
hatred and revenge? Peace and safety are not found there.

Rifles, cannon and swords are evidences of danger, and not
of safety. Backed by revenge, hatred and ambition, the im-
plements of war have become a world menace. They will
destroy the institutions from which they sprang, or the energies
of the race vfiW be exhausted and man v^all relapse into another
dark age.

The foundations of peace must be laid in economic institu-
tions. We cannot fight each other in our every-day business
life and at the same time learn to love each other. The fruits
of contention and conflict are hatreds. The fruits of victory
are ambition for greater victory and greed for greater gain.
The victor and the vanquished are always enemies, whether
that victory be in the industrial or military battlefield. A
century of struggling in the commercial and industrial battle-
fields has hardened the hearts of men and prepared them for
the more acute and horrible world conflict.

The war will not end until the elements of war shall have
passed away. The hour of transformation is at hand. The
ovei'wheiming needs of the world will force the amalgamation
of all industries under social control. The conflict between
individuals in the business world will end. Man will unite in
a common struggle to save the race. The love of each for his
own family will enlarge into a love for the race, and in the
heart of love will safety and peace find an everlasting dwelling
place.

TYRE and Sidon, Babylon and Egypt, the Caesars, the
Charlemagnes, the Napoleons and Cromwells, have had
military power sufficient to have made their governments
immortal, if force could do it. But always there is in brute
force the germs of death. Russian imperialism has forced its
tomb. German imperialism has aroused the antagonism of the
world and will soon go down. The brutal imperialism of
England, of Italy, of Turkey, of all the world, has aroused the
antagonism of the people of the world and must go down.
The European trenches are the tombs of imperialism. In them
will every crown and scepter be buried. Over the trenches
the world's heart will bleed with sorrow. It will bathe its lost
ones in tears. It will visit the sentence of death on force as a
rule of life. It will tell men to recompense evil with good. It
will teach the children of the world to love one another and
so fulfill the law.

Page

About Llano

The Western Cc

Llano — Community of Progress

By Robert K. Williams

NUSUAL weather the nation over, and, it is said, the
I T world over, an unprecedented late spring has delayed
\J crops more than two months in Uano. At this time

last year the alfalfa had been cut twice; this year

but once. However, a greater acreage is in this year, which
will more than compensate for the lack of crop at the first
cutting. Garden truck is behind hand, and the climate has
not !»een at all up to standard. It has been cold and disagree-
able in many ways. Reports from various parts of the coun-
try say that weather vagaries are general. So Llano is no
exception, but must receive the good and bad with the rest
of the world.

Progress, however, may be reported in the garden and field,
and everything points to a good crop for this year's canning,
both of vegetables and fruits. It is now beginning to get
warm in the valley and evidence of new vegetation is springing
up on every hand.

The great valley is a mass of flowering plants and the
ground is really carpeted with varicolored flowers. Bees are
busy and it will not be long before a new and greater crop
of honey will be harvested. The bee industry in the Antelope
Valley offers many attractions for the bee man, as the flower
season is longer than is generally found in other parts of the
country.

Visitors are coming more freely than ever to Llano. Indeed,
few days pass that do not bring interested and curious people
to Llano. Llano has much to offer, but it is a fact that she
has not enough to offer. One of the reasons that Llano has
not grown faster from a farming and industrial point of view
is due to the fact that people come so very fast. People come
faster than houses and places can be built. The war, instead
of stopping the influx of people, will doubtless make it greater.
Conditions are becoming so on the "outside" that living is
growing harder and harder, and Llano offers about the only
place of refuge and safety in the country.

Most people who come are willing and anxious to put up
with any sort of housing to secure the opportunity of staying
away from the turmoil of competitive strife that is found on
the outside. It is a curious thing that, notwithstanding small
and inadequate housing for over two years, a place has been
found for every one who was willing to put up with the neces-
sary inconveniences.

However, things are getting better. The road to the timber
land is almost finished. Hauling actually could be done over
it now, and there remains but sendmg the tractor after the
logs to start the mill sawing. When the hum and buzz of
the sawmill is heard new hopes and aspirations will fill the
hearts of every one. Vexatious delays have occurred in the
construction of the road, and minor accidents stopped, for the
time, the work of going ahead. For instance, work on the
road was stopped for more than two weeks by the delay in
the arrival of a s[- ark-arrester which the government insisted
must be put on the tractor before it could be put to work.

It is very hard to count on things. When an institution
such as Llano is growing and the diversion of labor is so
constant, promises cannot always be kept. It has been re-
marked often that some people here make promises and then
don't keep them. That is perfectly true. Conditions, as has
been said, control Llano. When one "goes on an auto trip
promises go for nothing. Accidents too frequently occur, and

to say definitely when one shall be at a certain place under
such conditions is practically impossible.

The finishing of the log road and the starting of the saw-
mill has been expected and promised from time to time. Acci-
dents and unusual delays occurred and set back the operations.
These things are not within control. It would be perfectly
easy to make promises and keep them if conditions were
standardized. This condition obtains, as well as the other
one of families arriving with household goods, demanding
homes and a place to store the furniture. We run a hotel
and a warehousing and a housebuilding department.

The question is still asked when we shall begin work on the
upper townsite. No one can definitely answer that. Promises
are good, of course, for an early beginning. It would seem
all possible urge is behind it. There are a half-dozen good
reasons why we should move from this townsite to the one
on the slope above. Our intentions are good, and yet there
seems something just across the horizon of unaccountable
things that prevents us from going ahead. However, we

Another View of Scenery Close to Llano.

believe that it is a question of lumber as much as anything
else why the work has not been started.

A few Sundays ago some of the men and women of the
printing and publishing department went to the old brick yard
and made a few large adobe brick as a matter of experiment.
Up to the present these bricks seem to be standing the
weather all right. If the brick are a success, it was the inten-
tion to start the print shop first and finish that, and then the
homes of those who work in that department on the new town-
site. Adobe brick 6x12x18 inches seem to fill the bill in point
of size and can be made quickly, using the old method of
mixing. However, there is nothing absolutely definite about
this plan. Many changes may occur.

When the newcomer drives over the upper townsite he is
inspired with the view. For this if for no other reason the
town should be moved. Hills off in the blue haze loom large
and grand to the north, east and west. Small hummocks
miles and miles away break the monotony of the great valley.

The Western Comrade

About Llano

Page

Desert land has a peculiar fascination for most people. Some
like the mountains and the majestic grandeur, but the desert
has a mysteriousness that cannot lurk on a mountain crag.
Light and shade changing, ever changing, lend a charm beyond
expression and has to be viewed to be recognized and appre-
ciated. Desert men come back again and again to the magni-
tudes where solitude lends the allurement. .An Easterner for
the first time sees little in Western plains, covered with nothing
but sage, cactus and wild flowers. However, after a study of
these plans is begun and the aroma of their foliage sinks into
the blood they are lost to the old ties of the East.

Some of the worst detractors of the West often stay to
become its best boosters. It is surprising how little general
knowledge obtains in regard to California valleys. The great
valleys seem to be different to every person, and it is seldom
one finds that the distant impression is correct. One man
from New York was surprised and disgusted to find "nothing
but sand and sage more than 1 ,600 miles east of Los Angeles."
He had forgotten his geography and allowed his feelings to
talk.

The Colony is doing many things, and at all times keeping
in mind the one idea, that of getting a living. Work on the
ranch, tilling the soil and growing things, is uppermost in the
minds of those having in charge this important work. Urgent
demand come from all sources to increase the output of

there are a vast crowd of poor people in the nation and jobs
are quickly snapped up.

Freedom at Llano is a real thing. The thralldom of bills,
which is a nightmare to every salaried man or a man working
for wages, is not a factor at all in Llano. We get what we
need from the commissary, or else eat at the hotel, and when
the month rolls round nothing but a statement, showing cred-
its usually, is received by the worker. Credits, such as we
work for, have a real value. They connect directly v«th the
stomach. You cannot come into the hotel and eat unless you
possess a ticket. The ticket is as good as any tvventy-five-cent
piece. This one fact alone is a fine argument against the
necessity of money, though it is the reigning thing, and we
must not change the system too abruptly. We must grow
into it.

The commissary is growing and expanding in a way that
will make for the betterment of that department. It is true,
everything cannot be kept there. We haven't got the money
to lay in a big supply of this and that. We must keep such
supplies as are demanded by the average. This we try to do.
The commissary department is always busy thinking out meth-
ods to improve the condition of the shelves.

The question has been asked why people leave Llano and
go to other parts and go to work. There are, of course, many
reasons, but the most potent, in my mind, is the lack of a few

I. In the Cabinet Shop. 2. In the Mill Yard. 3. The Tin Shop. 4. View in Machine Shop.

vegetables and wheat. Recendy a comrade arrived from
.Arizona. He was refused beans at a grocery store unless he
would plant them. This demand for more food, while seem-
ingly an old-time trick, cannot help but make for ultimate
solution of the age-old question. When the little gardener
finds it easy to raise stuff with a little help, he will soon see
that it would be much easier to raise and consume w'ith much
more help. Llano, through its co-operative efforts, offers to
the willing worker such an opportunity, and a growing army
of practical co-operators is beginning to learn about it.

When a newcomer is asked how he learned about Llano he
usually mentions some paper or book or one of our publica-
tions. This shows that the printed page is reaching farther
and farther, and it is only a matter of time until a great host
will be acquainted with Llano and its efforts to secure eco-
nomic freedom. It has been mentioned that the war condi-
tion will bring people to us. Personally I believe this to be
true. Evidence shows, since it was definitely known that the
United States was going into war, that a new impetus was
given to inquirers and the arrival of families. Economic con-
ditions will doubtless continue to grow more and more em-
barrassing, so that the common man and woman will have
great difficulty in even existing. Of course, it is recognized
that many industries will be operated more than ever, but

ready dollars with which to buy some of the commoner of
little luxuries and things they are accustomed to. We are not
self-supporting, and it uill be some time before we are. Until
we make it from the land, through live stock, or industries, or
some method of financing not yet adopted, we must deny our-
selves luxuries. Of course, those that are contemplating com-
ing and have read of us for a long time know the conditions
obtaining and are striving to accumulate sufficient to pay
their way in and still have something left over.

I would like to see every new member comfortably pro-
vided for. A few extra dollars in Llano goes farther than
anj-^vhere you ever saw. We carry the ordinary things, but
are not rich enough and old enough to carry a big line of
merchandise. When the time comes that the Colony can pay
some of its wages in cash, there will be a happy crowd in
Llano. I heard a crowd dreaming about the time when the
Colony would be self-supporting and every one had cash in his
pockets to spend. The consensus of opinion was thp.t, while
they themselves did not want the cash, they thought it would
make for content and happiness should it be known that
every one could get cash when he wanted it; which reminded
me of the story of the old man who thought he would draw
his money from the bank, fearing it was unsafe. When the
teller handed it over, the old fellow shoved it back and said:

rage

eight

About Llano

The Western Comrade

"Oh, you still have it." Oftentimes a knowledge of the pos-
session of a thing is sufficient to make one content.

The nights in the high mountains are still cold. The snow
has melted slowly. A little later in the season much more
water will flow. In the meantime work on the tunnel is pro-
gressing. Considerably more water has been secured by open-
mg up the old tunnel. The work of crossing the creek on or
near bedrock will be pursued. Arrangements to allow the
Big Rock to flow down the 3,000-foot tunnel are made, and
when this is actually done a great deal of seepage will be
avoided and thus saved. At the mouth of the tunnel a new
ditch has been dug, and, being straighter, will, when cobbled,
conserve and bring to the land more and better water. The
engineers and all those interested in this phase of the devel-
opment of the ranch are sanguine over the water improvement.

It is too early to speak of preparations for fall food con-
servation, but it may be remarked in passing that a great

In last month's story of the May Day celebration an oversight
occurred in my story which caused me serious embarrassment
and chagrin. It was no less than an account of Llano's first
baby show. I herewith append a resume of the artistic affair,
and beg the indulgence of sixteen mothers whose hearts were
delighted with the receipt of blue ribbons for their babies.

Mrs. Robert K. Williams evolved the idea of Llano holding
a baby show on that festive and historic occasion. The crowd
was right for it and the setting was perfect for its holding.
The mothers with babies fell in line and enjoyed the spirit of
a baby show to the fullest.

Assisted by Comrades Frank E. Wolfe and Mrs. Wolfe and
Mrs. M. G. Buxton, arrangements were quickly made for hold-
ing the baby show in the assembly hail after the barbecue had
been disposed of. Bunting tacked to posts placed in a semi-
circle held back the eager crowd which pushed its way to the
front to view the little tots held on the laps of proud mothers

or nestled among

The Llano Dramatic Club which offers such good amusement at intervals for the benefit of the Llano Colonists.

quantity of beef and pork will be arranged for, so that the
coming winter will not see a shortage on this score.

In coming to Llano, I wish again to impress upon you the
necessity of bringing as much of your household and personal
effects as possible. All these things have been useful to you,
and they will be doubly so here. Don't forget this. Also
bring as much of your clothing as you can. Don't despise
the homeliest rag. This is the time of saving, so be saving.
I would advise you to bring as many work clothes, stockings,
shoes, etc., as you can. If you do this, you will be less of a
draw upon your comrades here and, in addition, feel a greater
sense of independence. We, of course, try to supply every
want, but it is impossible, an.d shortages will occur and trans-
portation often fail. Don't forget, also, that dollars are good
everywhere, and they are good to have when you want a
luxury or two that is not carried in the commissary.

The spirit of the Colony is good, and there is a steady
determination ever prevalent of making Llano the first suc-
cessful colony and beating by a long time the inevitable co-
operative commonwealth that will be born out of the world
war struggle.

snowy drapery in
buggies. Sixteen
mothers brought
their babies.

Before beginning
the exhibition. Com-
rade Wolfe, in a fe-
licitous address, told
of baby shows he
had attended and
judged, and said that
years could not dim
the joy of a mother
who received a prize
to show to the child
when grown to man-
hood or womanhood.
At the conclusion of
his remarks, George
Bowers, manager of
the dairy, made a re-
quest to exhibit the
latest arrival in the
Colony. Mrs. Wil-
liams and the others
were puzzled for
a while at the request, litde dreaming what he had up his
sleeve. However, they gave him glad permission to show his
friend's baby.

Mr. Wolfe was assigned the duty of awarding the prize to
the best baby; he, a diplomat at all times, decided that as
Llano babies were the best babies, the handsomest babies and
most perfect babies, that a blue ribbon be given to each
mother for her baby.

When the hearts of the mothers were made glad by the
receipt of a first-prize blue ribbon and the cooing infants
were safely and snugly tucked away in their go-carts, imagine
the surprise of the committee, and the gale of laughter and
surprise, when Bowers came trudging into the hall with a
two-day-old calf pulling at his forefinger. The sturdy little
bovine was not at all disturbed by the unusual noise and the
peals of merriment, but followed greedily on and almost swal-
lowed Bowers' hand. Proudly picking up the young Holstein
scion in his arms. Bowers walked around the room, and his
little one received fond pats and many "Oh, dear, isn't he
cutes." George was as proud as a mother when a floral
wreath was flung around the bulging neck of his pet.

The Western Comrade

Page nine

Quo Vadis?

By John Dequer

HE working class argues, quibbles and fights.

T' The capitalists plan and scheme and set the wheels
in motion.
The working class speculates on, instead of ex-
perimenting with, the laws that govern man and society. They
talk loud of economic forces on which they have no grasp.
The capitalist meanwhile appropriates the earth. The thinking
ones among the workers revel in mental fireworks, while the
capitalist rejoices in material accumulation. As a rule the
capitalist is not very intellectual ; but he knows how to invest,
and it is this that renders him substance, and substance gives
him the power to buy the specialized brain of the workers.

He pays them for their specialized work, and if they do not
deliver the goods he fires them without ceremony. Hence, if
you, as a worker, want to sell your brain power, you must
have a brain worth buying.

A marketable brain is one that has accumulated experience
and trained functions. To acquire these means concentrated
application. Concentration of thought upon the work in hand
is the keynote of education.

Education was given to the workers only because trained
brains were needed in the business world. All brains, however,
are not of equal power and capacity. There is an almost im-
measurable gulf between the gibbering idiot and an intellectual
giant. There is a long cry between Henry Dubb and a Shake-
speare. Their brains have different capabilities, different
inclinations and desires.

The Earning brain is not a class product, but a freak product.
It is a case where nature, in the distribution of vitality, has
endowed the head with a more generous amount of cerebral
activitj'. This, more than subsequent environment, produces
the leader, the manager, the capitalist. When nature over-
endows a single faculty we have a genius or a crank.

While science has proven that acquired characteristics are
not inherited by progeny, it has also proven that freaks trans-
mit themselves persistently. The freak favorable to special
environment will multiply there and become a type, a variety,
and finally a distinct species, even as man is a species allied
to but distinct from anthropoid apes (chiefly in his environ-
inent).

Among both working and capitalist classes certain freaks are
born. They are termed "idealists." They are about as well
fitted for the modern competitive business world as the nether
regions are for a powder house.

The idealist is a being in whom the soul inclinations are
stronger than his equistic instincts. They forget self often-
times in their passion for the mass. They differ one from the
other in many ways, but in this they are a unit in that they
possess large social hopes and fears.

The modern world has no real room for them. They are
prophets in their own country. Their idea of right and wrong,
their soul-passion to care for the weak and preserve the
afflicted, appeal to the ears of many. Hence the idealist finds
his work on the soapbox, on the platform, in art or in litera-
ture. If he is mentally not strong enough to reach these voca-
tions, he will work at something else under protest, but show
marked tendencies to the aforementioned fields of activity.
The idealist, be he man or woman, is a prophet of things as
they, in his or her judgment, ought to be. The capitalist, on
the other hand, is a master of things as they are. The idealist
has ideas — mostly unsaleable.

The capitalist accumulates the things that feed the stomach.
He also seeks after and develops the talent needed to run the
world's business for him. He patronizes the scientist, the
inventor, the discoverer, when these worthies have demon-
strated that they have something out of which the capitalist
can make money. True, he will freeze them out, if he can;
that is true of the small ones, whose ideas are more interesting
than useful.

Do not misunderstand me. I did not say that the capitalist
produces anything. I say he accumulates, and at the smallest
cost in time or money to him. He therefore watches each
opportunity, and, as he is no sucker, he generally investigates,
or sees that some one who is competent investigates, the bait
before he swallows.

Mrs. Capitalist often sympathizes with the poor. She is
charitable to them as long as they are grateful for her smile
and don't strike. The agitator often proves interesting to her.
Thus we see the wild-eyed agitator, the long-haired, moon-
eyed, philosophical anarchist, sometimes in her company and
sometimes even in her home. But you seldom hear that he
has married into the family or become a partner in her hus-
band's business. He is looked upon as a well-meaning, whole-
hearted, pleasantly conversational pest, who may be depended
upon to say something perfectly awful, thereby adding breeze
and zest to the otherwise prosy lives of the idle ladies in the
homes of the masters of industry. A few times I have been
so invited, and I am frank to say that I felt as if I were an
odd-looking bedbug whom they dared not kill for fear of
being personal. In spite of an occasional dinner party, how-
ever, the idealist generally dies poor.

Why? The answer is simple. Life renders two types more
or less distinct. These types look at life from different angles.
One wants and seeks liberty, and is willing to shoulder the
responsibility that liberty entails. The other type wants free-
dom from responsibility, and therefore has to take the slavery
that such freedom entails.

The capitalist sees where markets may be opened, and he
buys newspaper editors, preachers and teachers, to produce a
spirit needed to get that market. He therefore shoulders
tremendous risks in finance, while the workers, as a mass,
rather fight than think. If they, as a mass, thought, there
would be no fight, no profit and no capitalists. Here the
idealist shouts, "Fight is wrong, profit is wrong, capitalism is
wrong."

But profit is here, fight is here, capitalism is here. What
are you going to do about it? Argue, of course.

This world is not run by argument. It is run by work and
thought, by brawn and brain. Both are expenditures of
energy, and in the competitive world men's labor power can
be bought at its value, as food and clothing, and his brain
power at a rate often not much higher. The thinker can turn
his thought into cash and his money into comfort and power
by the system of markets. There is a great incentive to self-
ishness. A worker who is endowed with executive brain, who
brings his cerebral action upward to a high efficiency, is paid
more so as to create a distinction between the workers. There
is not room for all in a superintendent's office, we are told.
Granted: but the room in the really responsible places has
not yet been overcrowded. The fact that the common labor
market is generally congested only shows that the mass of

(Continued on page 22)

rage ten

Fiction

The Western Comrade

The Play House

By Helen Frances Easley

EDRIC watched the Httle girl crossing the lawn toward
him. She must be the one his father told him about
the night before, when he had come back from his
alternating six months, as he himself called his ab-
sence, having heard some one speak of the decree which gov-
erned the movements of his baby life.

Cedric liked girls. Even if other boys did call him a sissy,
and even though he was seven years old and almost a man, he
liked their pretty, soft dresses, their flying curls, if their hair
happened to be curly, or a bobbing "Dutch cut," if that hap-
pened to be the mode of their coiffure. Of course, he
wouldn't have wanted such things for himself, but for girls they
were lovely; girls just couldn't be girls without them, he argued.
And this new one appeared to be all that he could desire. Her
eyes were veritable violets, and her hair, a somewhat frowsy
mass of curls, seemed to be a nest of sunbeams. And she
appeared to be younger than he — much younger. Why, she
couldn't be more than six!

"Hello!" she said, vydth a most engaging smile. "Are you
the boy that lives here?"

"Sometimes," he responded.

"Yes! I know. I've been waiting most of two months, I
think it is, for you to come home. It's been such a long
time. My mother said you lived here part of the time, and
somewhere else part of the time. I think it's such a funny
way to live ! "

"I've always lived that way," Cedric maintained, stoutly.
He did not like to have the dignity of his position assailed.
"And," he added, somewhat timidly, "I like to travel." A hun-
dred miles is, after all, quite a trip for a boy to make alone.

"Oh! So do I," replied his visitor, "but I just couldn't do
without either my father or my mother. The three of us go
everywhere together! We are all just crazy about each other.
Daddy says he has the nicest family in the whole world, and
mother would just die without him, I know. Why, when he
is gone just a day or so she watches for him to come back,
and the minute he gets in the house he holds her close in his
arms, and she pats his cheek or runs her fingers through his
hair — it's curly like mine — and calls him her big boy! That
sounds funny, doesn't it, because Daddy is a really man.
Does your mother ever call your father a big boy?"

"No," Cedric responded, slowly. "No, I've never seen my
father and mother together. People call them divorced. I
guess that means they don't live together, and they never love
anybody 'cepting me. When I go to mother's she holds me
up tight and says 'His father's mouth,' and cries on my head
a little; and when I come home father mumbles something
like 'His mother's eyes more than ever,' and kisses me hard
and almost squeezes the breath out o' me; but that is all they
ever say about each other, and they haven't anybody to love
but me."

"But I suppose you do have awful nice times!" Here the
innate motherliness of woman was uppermost in the desire to
sooth and conciliate.

"Oh! yes," the boy responded, brightly. "Mother and I
have lovely times together. We go to most places together,
and she has the cunningest little 'lectric runabout, that I can
almost run by myself, and we have such nice little parties, and
mother tells me the nicest stories, nicer than Cinderella and
Jack the Giant Killer. I do get sort of lonesome for her
stories, but of course my father is awful busy" — ^with a valiant

effort to shield the man — "and I can't expect him to play with
me like a lady would; and anyway I'll soon hear lots of
stories — I'm going to start to school in September. I'm seven
years old! But one time father and I almost had a picnic,
almost. It was just before I went away last time. Father
said he would take me to his little cabin, so Jane packed the
big lunch basket and we went in the automobile. It is just a
teeny little ways, but the lunch basket was too heavy to carry,
so that's the reason we rode. Why, I could find my way
there all by myself, I'm sure! We went to that cunning little
cabin, and father unlocked the door. It was just like a play
house, furnished with the nicest things, and we walked through
the three rooms, and all of a sudden father said: 'Son, we
can't stay here!' I was so 'sprised, 'cause the little house
belongs to him, but when I told him so he only shook his head
and locked the door again. We went 'way back in the trees,
where we couldn't see the little house at all, and ate our lunch;
and it was pretty nice, only father was sort of quiet; but I
should like to see that litde house again."

"So would I," the little girl agreed, her interest stirred by
the boy's description of the little house and the cunning furni-
ture. "I just love to play house. I have one for my dolls,
only it isn't big enough for me to get into. Do you think we
could go there some time and have a little picnic?" Her eyes
were very wistful.

"Oh! lets." Cedric rose eagerly. "I'll tell Jane, and we
can go now," but he was restrained by a little hand which
pulled him down again onto the lawn.

"I can't go now," the lips quivered, although the child
struggled bravely to control them. "I can't go without asking
my mother, and I haven't seen her this morning. Nobody has
paid any 'tention to me since I got up ; even Daddy didn't have
anything to say to me. I had my breakfast in the kitchen.
Why, my hair hasn't been combed even ! " Her voice rose
shrilly and she was perilously near tears. "And I was so
lonesome, so when I saw you here I came right over ! "

Cedric 's manhood asserted itself. He reached out timidly
and touched the shining curls.

"Oh! pooh! little girl" — here he remembered that she had
not told him her name — "I wouldn't care about that. Why, I
like your hair that way; it makes me think of the sun fairies
my mother told me about. And if your father and mother
don't treat you nice any more we'll run away to the cabin.
We'll go to-day!"

It was an alluring proposition and brought the pink to her
cheeks. She was contemplating it seriously, when suddenly
a voice broke the stillness.

"Alice! Oh, Alice!"

"That's me!" the child said, sitting up straight. "Oh! how
funny — I didn't tell you my name. I know you are Cedric
Wyler, but I guess you didn't know that I'm Alice Roberts."

"Alice! Oh, Alice!"

The voice was coming nearer, and suddenly a pretty maid,
with face flushed and eyes shining, found the children.

"Oh! there you are, honey!" There was no censure in her
voice. "I've been looking everywhere for you. Guess what is
over at your house. A baby brother!"

Alice was up and flying across the lawn in less time than it
takes to tell, and Cedric, watching her, was filled with jealous
rage. He had been sure that he had found a playmate; she
had almost consented to run away with him, and here she was

The Western Comrade

P!cti<

e eleven

returning to her family, the family who had neglected her for a
whole morning, returning to them gladly. A baby brother, in-
deed! Probably she would never come back again if she had a
brother of her own to play with. He gulped back the lump
in his throat, and Alice, halting at the edge of the lawn,
turned suddenly.

"Oh! Cedric!" she called. "Of course, I have to go home
now, but I'll come back soon, for I like you lots! I 'most
forgot to tell you."

It was comforting, and Cedric, greatly mollified, turned to-
ward the house, walking slowly. But the 'nearer he came to
it the quicker became his steps. A brilliant idea had come to
him. He mounted the broad steps, a sturdy little figure, and
hurried to his father's study.

"Father."

"Yes, son."'

"I want a brother — no, a sister!"

"Why, son, whatever put that into your head?" exclaimed
the man, amazed at the request.

"Alice, the new little girl. They have a baby brother at
their house. I guess he just came this morning. Anyway she
just found out about him, and I think I'd like to have a sister!"

"But what would you do with a baby in this house? Who
would take care of it? I'm afraid that neither you nor I
would have time, and Jane is busy all the time, as it is."

Cedric dug his heel into the thick rug and twisted his hands
in the pockets of his diminutive "knickers." He was going to
mention a subject that was carefully avoided, as if by mutual
consent. He had never been denied the right to speak of his
mother, but he always did it timidly, and very seldom, for he
felt that the conversation made his father uncomfortable.
However, he felt very brave to-day, and his words came
steadily as he looked straight into his father's eyes.

"Why, I thought maybe if we got one, maybe we could get
my mother to come back and take care of it. Don't you think
maybe we could 'range it?"

"I'm afraid not, my son. It's quite out of the question.
Now run on and play; you see I'm very busy now. I'll see
you soon."

He strove to speak lightly and succeeded well enough to de-
ceive the boy's ears.

Cedric walked to the door, opened it and stood with his
hand on the knob.

"All right, father. I didn't mean to 'sturb you. I just
thought I'd talk it over with you. Alice thinks we're awful
queer, and I don't like to be queer. I didn't think you would
like it either. But she thinks it is funny because our family
is divorced. She says none of theirs could ever get along
without all the rest, and when her father is gone for just a
little while her mother waits and looks for him, same as if it
was a long, long time, and when he comes home he holds her
close up in his arms, an' she pats his cheek, and runs her
fingers through his hair, an' calls him her big 'boy. It sounded
sort of funny to me, but nice, and I thought maybe — may-
be " The little voice trailed off apologetically. He had

taken far too much of his father's time, and so the door closed
on the imploring gaze of the big brown eyes, so like his
mother's.

Malcom Wyler was a young man, only a few years over
thirty, but as he pushed from him the papers, in which he had
lost all interest, he seemed very, very old. The face which
he buried in his hands was working convulsively. What a
mess he had made of life ! How vain were all his efforts! The
boy was beginning to awaken, and his little glimpse of other
people's happiness would constantly cause him to wonder and

think. He might never 'ask, but there would always be the
desire for an explanation.

"Pats his cheek and runs her fingers through his hair!"

Ugly sobs shook the man. The boy's words had crucified
him. His heart was fearfully and cruelly torn by the memories
so ruthlessly brought to mind.

"Her big boy! "

No one could ever be sweeter than Laura, no one could
speak love names more caressingly — or have been truer, he
added it haltingly, almost grudgingly, for his pride was dying
a hard death. He had been to blame; he knew it now, he had
known it for a long, long time, but it was too late. He him-
self had made it too late. He could never go back; his atti-
tude had been absolutely unpardonable. No matter how hum-
bly he might ask for forgiveness, it would never be granted
now. He had waited too long, and though he was finding his
punishment well nigh unbearable, he had to admit that it
was just.

He did not appear at lunch. When Jane went to his door
to announce it, he excused himself, saying that he had not
finished his work and that he had better not leave it. So
Cedric ate hurriedly and resumed his watch on the front lawn.
He found the house across the road very interesting. He
wondered what the new brother looked like anyway. He had
never seen a teeny-weeny baby, and although he was sure that
he had been one himself, he had no distinct recollection of
what it was like. Anyway he must be quite wonderful, and
perhaps Alice would not come back for a long, long time,
three days maybe, at which thought a blurriness of which he
was ashamed came into his eyes. He was thinking very lonely
thoughts when he was amazed to see Alice waving at him; not
only that, she was coming across the road!

He ran to meet her, his face radiant, and she greeted him
with 'a little, gurgling laugh.

"That brother is the cutest thing," she confided; "so little
and soft, but sort of red; only I don't mind that a bit; the
nurse says it will wear off anyway. But he and my mamma
are taking a nap now, and so we have to be so creepy quiet,
so I asked Annie if I might come over to see you, an' she said
'Yes' right away, that I could stay all afternoon. Everybody
is so smilly and happy over at my house that they act just
like they was glad to let me do anything I ask 'em."

She twisted her belt nervously as she went on shyly.

"And couldn't we go to the little play house? Next to my
brother, I keep thinkin' of that little cabin you talked about,
and I do wish I could see it!"

Her tone was very whe,edling and coaxing — an absolutely
unnecessary quality, for at the mere mention of her desire
Cedric responded with alacrity.

"I just guess so! An' wait a minute. I'll ask Jane to fix
us a lunch, just a little one, 'cause we must hurry and get
started. An' I'll tell her we're going to have a little picnic."

Several hours later, just at dusk, Annie, the maid of the
Roberts household, came in search of Alice, and in turn she
and Jane ransacked the Wyler premises for the children. They
could find no trace of them.

"Well, bless my soul!" exclaimed motherly old Jane, "Cedric
came in and asked me for a lunch and said that he and Alice
were going to have a picnic in a play house. Has Miss Alice
a play house?"

Annie shook her head.

"Then where do you suppose the little scamps went? I never
heard Cedric talk about a playhouse before, and I supposed it
was some contraption of the little girl's!" She meditatively
(Continued on page 22)

Page twelve

The Co-operative Movemeiin

HAVE been requested to tell you what I know about

Ithe co-operative movement in England. It is just
about six years since I left there, and, needless to

say, those years have been very eventful. The

whole world has been passing through a series of events which
will leave their mark on history's pages for all time.

I well remember that about the time I left England, and for
a couple of years afterward, great business was being done
by the emigration agencies. Everything that could be done
to show the alluring West in a good light and to make it
attractive was done — on paper. At that time there was a tre-
mendous army of unemployed, which bid fair in a very short
time to deteriorate into an army of unemployables. This
condition, allowed to develop, 'was sure, sooner or later, to
prove a great menace to the existing order of things. Capi-
talism had already run its course; its industries were no longer
able to absorb the requisite proportion of the labor power
available in order to keep the system running smoothly. We
know full well that capitalism, for its successful operation,
needs an unemployed reserve. But we also know that when

armies were being used to quell the revolting workers. Unem-
ployed demonstrations and hunger marches were every-day
occurrences, and each country seemed to be competing with
its neighbor to see which could make the most pretentious
demonstration. I doubt whether the acts of diplomacy per-
formed by the members of the various governments to appease
the demands of labor have been surpassed even by anything
that has been done in the great world war. Thoughtful men
and women wondered what was to be the result of this condi-
tion. The more acute it became, the nearer the great crisis
when the system must break down. Even you in this com-
paratively new country had begun to experience the same kind
of thing. Hired thugs were sent into the disturbed areas, the
captains of industry held the upper hand, and Ludlow is one
of the jewels in the crown of capitalism in this country.

From what I have said, are not some of you able to under-
stand clearer what precipitated the great struggle that is now
in progress between the nations? Do not jump to any conclu-
sions about the cause of the present war, unless you have
been a student of economics. The science of economics has

^MtfL

t.i

The mountaiKS abound in picnic spots wUere Llano citizens may enjoy their vacations.

that reserve grows to undue proportions it is inevitable that
trouble will arise. Emigration was a kind of safety valve and
served the purpose of easing the pressure. But, with all this,
the workers who were left and who could secure employment
were still able to produce such a surplus that the markets
continued to be glutted. There was not only a surplus of the
commodity labor power, but also of the commodities that
labor produces. The reward of productiveness was starvation.

One need not be very observant to be able to understand
how this condition was brought about. The very fact that
any one can find some other individual who is willing to give
employment and pay wages has more in it than appears on
the surface. Industrial concerns do not employ men and
women because they love them. They employ them because
their labor is a source of profit to themselves. Now, because
I happen to have been born in England and have referred to
the condition that existed there, do not think that I wanted
you to believe that it was a condition peculiar to that country
alone. It was not. All the countries of Europe were in the
same fix. All had the same problem to solve. If markets
could only be found, the problem would be solved for a time.
But no such markets were to be found, however.

Industrial unrest was the order of the day. The standing

always been spoken of to the workers as the dismal science,
but, if we only knew, it is the key to the whole situation that
millions are trying to understand at present.

But, you will ask, what has this to do with the co-operative
movement in England? I hope to show that it has much to do
with the co-operative movement, not only in England, but all
over the world. And I shall try to show why I think the
co-operative movement is going to solve the difficulties that
have arisen from the competitive struggle — not only in solving
labor's problem, but also in making such a thing as a War
between nations an impossibility.

We must understand that, in an industrial sense, England
is much older than this country. She was well developed
before this country got its start. In fact, I suppose that most
of the machinery at first used in this country was brought over
from England, paving the way unconsciously for a rival in
the commercial field later. All phenomena takes place in due
season as the conditions which produce them develop. The
co-operative movement is older in England than in America
for the reason that the conditions were ripe for the birth of
such a movement. The co-operative movement had in England
a Socialistic origin, for its founder was Robert Owen. Owen
himself avowed that his grand, ultimate object was "com-

I

f

Page thirteen

i( n Great Britain

By George Grazier

munity in land," \\ith which, he hoped, would be combined
"unrestrained co-operation on the part of all, for every pur-
pose of human life." It is thus important to associate co-
operation with Robert Owen, for, although co-operation did
not have a continuous development from that time, he had
the same idea that is guiding the movement, and that is guiding
us here in Llano. The modern co-operative movement in
England may be said to date from 1844, when a few men
in the town of Rochdale, in Lancashire, commenced what
may be termed "the process of joint stock storekeeping." It
is true this is something different from the proposition of Robert
Owen, but we shall see that from the beginning there has
been a gradual development taking place, and there is a
growing desire for that "unrestrained co-operation on the
part of all, for every purpose of human life."

The Rochdale pioneers were a few workingmen, who,
instead of shouting about the high cost of living, simply com-
bined their very limited resources, appointed their directors
and managers, bought their supplies direct from the manu-
facturers, and supplied their members with commodities at

tive movement as it stands to-day, gaining in strength in
proportion to its economic power, wielding political influence
because of the force it can command by and through the
possession of vast economic resources. During 1916 the com-
bined organizations did one thousand million dollars' worth
of business, one organization alone transacting a business
averaging five million dollars per week. Wheat lands in Can-
ada and tea plantations in Ceylon are owned by them. They
are acquiring land in England and raising vegetables and live
stock. They outi eight flour miils, and last year 3,185,963
sacks of flour were milled and delivered to the various dis-
tributing societies. This was made into bread, biscuits, cakes,
etc., by co-operative labor. The only eight-hour-day match
factories and cake, biscuit, jam and pickle factories in Englamd
are operated by them. One of the biscuit factories alone
turns out 1 ,750,000 cream crackers every day, in addition to
its other products. They are making their own shoes, clothing,
bedding and furniture, and can construct any kind of building,
from a rabbit hutch to any first-class public building. Printing
establishments are owned and controlled by them, and they

Many such beautiful scenes as these are wilhin walking dislance of Llano Colony.

first cost, thus eliminating middlemen's profits. The same
thing was done in other towns and cities, and there is hardly
a town or city there now without its co-operative store. That
was all right so far, but any one who takes the trouble to
analyze the position would soon find that if that was all the
co-operative movement was going to accomplish it may as
well have died at its birth. Because, although the organiza-
tions concerned could supply their members with commodities
at a somewhat lower price, this advantage would soon be
counteracted. So long as these men were working for wages,
producing for manufacturers, how long would it be before
wages decreased in proportion to the decreased cost of living?
The men whom they had eliminated from the system of dis-
tribution would become their competitors for the positions
which the manufacturers had to offer. Wages would fall
again to subsistence level and the co-operative storekeeping
would be of no advantage. But the co-operative movement
did not stop there, and the men who saw the necessity of a
distributing medium controlled by themselves, soon discovered
that they in fact gained nothing unless they began producing
as well. They learned what was necessary by trying to do
something. They might have theorized to this day. The main
thing was to act. They did so, and the result is the co-of)era-

even own vessels for carrying cargoes which have been raised
by them or purchjised abroad for their consumption.

You \\ill readily understand from this that the co-operative
movement there, although a comparatively recent arrival, is
gaining such power and momentum that it is to-day one of
the forces that is fast changing the whole industrial and social
outlook. Let it not be thought that all this has been brought
about without opposition, or that it is so strong to-day but what
capitalism takes every opportunity to challenge its bid for
supremacy. For instance, the tea brokers of the country have
always conducted a campaign against the C. W. S., and even
at the present time are doing so. What moves them to do so
is the desire to create unpleasantness for their dangerous and
hateful competitor. Meanwhile the C. W. S. regards these
attacks with calmness. Thanks to the society's own extensive
tea plantations and its financial strength, the traders can do
the C. W. S. no dama-ge. On the contrary, this conflict, as
often in the past, will serve to strengthen its position still more.

Many thought that a great war, such as the one in progress
at the present time, would cause the disruption of the co-opera-
tive movement. But, on the contrary, the movement has made
considerable progress. One finds that co-operative organiza-
tions are based on the principle that the welfare of its mem-

Page fourteen

Co-operation

The Western Comrade

bers shall be the first consideration. When they start pro-
ducing, it is only natural that the providing of food, clothing
and shelter shall be the first great object. This was the con-
dition when the war started. An organization, consisting of
hundreds of thousands of members and reaching from one
end of the country to the other, was doing for itself just those
things which the government was forced by the greed of the
capitalists to do for the whole people. Capitalism collapsed
because of its greed and incompetency. It tried to put on a
bold face in spite of this, and the various interests tried by
bombastic methods to pursue the old course. The government
had always been the faithful executive of the capitalist class
and had always obeyed their every wish. But the government
began to realize that there was something more serious taking
place than ever had taken place before. The very nation
itself was liable to fall into the hands of other exploiters and
to be dominated by them, so it deliberately said: "If you
want these glorious privileges preserved for yourselves, you
will have to allow us to run the business." It took a time to
convince them, but the fact that the German military machine
had done this long ago and controlled practically all produc-
tion and distribution, not only for the army and navy, but for
the general public as well, convinced them that they must
give way or lose all. It is a sure thing that if some of these
keen business men, as they are called, had been allowed all
the rope they wanted they would surely have come to grief.
However, their faithful executive, the government, prevailed,
with the result that the military machine of the Allies is making
a bid to equal the German machine in perfection. The indi-
vidual capitalist and corporation there must be careful not to
be too bold at present.

But what happened to the co-operative organizations? Did
the government take them over? No. Why not? Because
they were organizations founded to render service to their
members, and the government well knew that if one part of
the nation was now producing and distributing the necessities
of life through an efficient organization it would be easier for
them to manage the rest. Therefore it was a wise policy to
allow the co-operative organizations to go on the same as
before the war. There were several reasons for this: First,
the co-operators were manufacturing and distributing goods
that the people could not do without. They were producing
what the people actually needed. Secondly, their factories
and machinery were such as could not readily be used for
the manufacture of munitions and implements of war. So the
government felt that just to the extent of the co-operative
organizations' activities were their own responsibilities less-
ened. These very facts prove to the world the difference
between capitalistic and co-operative production. One is pro-
duction for profit; the other for use. At the time of a national
crisis capitalistic methods were found to be useless and a
hindrance; while co-operative methods, originating with the
idea of rendering service, filled the bill. The normal functions
of the co-operative enterprises were of such a nature that they
were bound to aid in the prosecution of the war. It was
unavoidable — to refuse to operate would just mean cutting off
their own supplies and sacrificing all.

Apart from that, the thing to note is that co-operation as a
system has proved to be efficient. Where it was not already
in operation the governments have enforced it to suit their
own purpose. After the war it will be up to the people to
see that the system of co-operation is maintained, not to fit
each nation with the teeth and claws of Mars, but to produce
those things that are necessary to every nation's well-being.
Capitalism has starved the people in the midst of plenty. It

will be the function of the co-operatively managed nations
in the near future to see that equitable distribution is made,
thereby abolishing poverty and all incentive to crime, individ-
ual or national.

You ask, how is it possible for a nation to commit crime?
I submit that the principle underlying criminality is the same,
whether applied to an individual or a nation. To cause un-
necessary suffering can be construed in no other way, and the
present war is the greatest crime of the ages. However, those
that hope to gain by it will find, after all the smoke and thun-
der of battle are passed away, that instead of the supremacy
for which they hoped, they have really ushered in a new order
of society. Very few people realize that at the present time
a social revolution is being effected. The co-operators of the
world have tried to effect it peacefully in a practical way. The
so-called political leaders tried to accomplish it by passing
resolutions and making speeches. The old trade-unionists
never had any conception of what a social revolution meant.
All they ever troubled about was keeping pace with the in-
creasing cost of living, and a devil of a time they had.

While speaking of this, I just want to refer to an editorial
in an English co-operative magazine called "The Producer."
Commenting on the activities of the Labor Party there, it says :
"The Labor Party does not yet seem to have realized that for
the economic betterment of the people, collectively owned
fields, factories and workshops are better than speeches and
resolutions ; they could, in fact, be made more effective in
the economic welfare of the workers than almost any kind of
legislation. When we are treading the paths of national
legislation we are upon very uncertain ground, that is apt to
give way at any moment. But when we capture fields and
grow wheat, build factories and manufacture goods, erect
warehouses and distribute the contents one to anotJier, we
know we are getting on solid ground."

The progress made in the older countries should give us
encouragement in our work here. Consider that the organiza-
tions there have kept in touch with one another in the most
friendly manner, even though the governments have declared
the countries to be at war. The co-operators were helpless to
prevent the war. It was useless for them to pit their forces
against a machine that was a thousand times as strong as them-
selves, and which they knew was determined to crush every-
thing that stood in its way. Co-operators here extend the glad
hand to co-operators in other countries. Our interests are the
same. Wars can never arise between us. It is only where an
antagonism of interest exists that war is a possibility.

Once get a national co-operation firmly established, and
war will be a thing of the past.

TO KEEP IN TOUCH WITH LLANO COLONY

Read of Llano in the LLANO COLONIST, the weekly paper telling
in detail of what is being achieved, giving an intimate peep into
the daily lives, the smaller incidents of this growing, thriving in-
stitution.

Read, too, the WESTERN COMRADE, the illustrated monthly
magazine, giving more complete articles concerning the Colony,
showing photos illustrating its growth, etc. The editorials, and
many other special features, are making it one of the leading
Socialist magazines of today.

For subscriptions to the Publications, changes of address, etc.,
please write

THE LLANO PUBLICATIONS
LLANO, CALIFORNIA

The Western Comrade

fifte

Was Schmidt Guilty?

[This is the third installment of Comrade Harriman's address in the trial
of the Los Angeles Times dynamiting cases.]

ERE let US turn the light on McManigal, the felon

H called as the principal witness for the state.
Mr. McManigal is a self-confessed murderer. He

claims to be guilty of the murder with which this

defendant is charged. He pleaded guilty to the charge of
conspiracy in Indianapwlis, and has testified in this prosecution,
the theory of which is that the conspiracy charged in Indian-
apolis is a continuing conspiracy, and that every one involved
therein is guilty of the murder of Charles Haggerty. After
testifying in Indianapolis, the prison doors were opened, this
criminal, McManigal, shook off his chains, walked out, was
given a thousand dollars in cash by the County of Los Angeles,
and told to go his way in peace.

That was the price paid for his testimony in Indianapolis
and upon this stand. What a willing, anxious witness! Why
should he not be willing? Was not his liberty at stake?
Would he swear a man's life away for his own life and lib-
erty? Would he not kill a man, with an oath, for his liberty,
if he would kill a man with a gun when his liberty was only
in jeopardy? What a tender-hearted, loving father the prose-
cution would have you believe him to be. What a fiend incar-
nate was he before they caught him ! What a change of heart
the third degree, coupled with a promise of liberty, and a
thousand dollars cash on the side, will work in the heart of a
murderer! He was not always thus, a hired butcher, bought
with the price of his own liberty. He was not always a saint,
with a loving heart throbbing with parental kindness. In 1907,
when the violence first began in the 'East, McManigal was
merely a workingman, that is all. Just a man working on the
job, helping to erect steel buildings the same as other working

I want you to pay particular attention as I repeat the un-
reasonable and improbable and false story of McManigal.

He testified that he was working in Detroit on the Ford
building when he met a man by the name of Hockin. That
statement is probably true. He said that there was a building
in the neighborhood under way of construction, upon which
a number of non-union men were working; that the union
men working on the Ford building were ordered to watch the
non-union men on the other building and to follow them to
the car that they took on their way home, and, when they got
off, to give them a beating; that the men working on the Ford
building followed the orders of Hockin and beat the non-
union men, much to the satisfaction of Mr. Hockin, but that
he, McManigal, refused to obey the orders — that he did not
believe in that sort of business and remained at home. Do
you think it was his tender heart that kept him there? Might
it not have been his physical cowardice? Personal warfare
with bare fists requires some courage. Are we quite sure that
this saint of Mr. Noels, made thus by promises of liberty and
cash payment, has the kind of courage necessary to enter a
contest with bare fists? You heard he had the nerve to carry
pure nitro-glycerine on long trips. Well, yes! But he was
familiar with nitro-glycerine and knew how to handle it with
safety. That required nerve, not courage. But did he not
put this nitro-glycerine in many places, under the most difficult
circumstances? True, he did. But you must remember that
many cowards are the best shots. It is their cowardice that
makes them good shots if their hearts are wicked. You will

remember that this loving father so tenderly cherished by
Mr. Noel had always with him a brace of .38 repeater Colt
revolvers. The penalty the law placed upon him for destroying
property was imprisonment. The penalty he placed upon an
attempt to catch him was death. What a father! What a
tender heart! What do you think of a man who would take
a human life rather than be imprisoned for a few years for
committing a crime? He could blow down a bridge and mur-
der a man rather than be caught. If he could murder a man
with a gun, in cold blood, rather than be imprisoned, how
much more willingly would he murder a man with an oath,
rather than be hanged?

Listen to the story of this man. When he refused to join
what he calls the entertainment committee, he tells us that this
man Hockin, hitherto a stranger, told him that since he refused
to assist in beating the non-union men, he would have to blow
up a building with dynamite. He testified that he protested —
that he did not want to destroy property; that it was wrong;
that he would quit work and go back to Chicago before he
would do such work; that Hockin was incorrigible and told
him that he must blow up the building; that if he quit work
and went back to Chicago he would be boycotted and would
not be able to go to work; that Hockin told him to wait while
he went up into Canada, where he would get the dynamite;
that Hockin went and returned without the stuff. What an
improbable story. The story is impossible. Do you think the
organizer of a labor organization would pick up a stranger and
force him to blow up a building with dynamite? You must
remember that there was a strike on, and at such times spies
are as thick as maggots in a festered sore. Do you not know
that organizers have long since learned to be exceedingly
cautious at such times? Were the organizer to force such an
act, it would only be necessary to disclose the fact to one of
the spies, some of whom are always present and known.

No organizer or any other man would try to force a man to
commit such a crime at such a time. By doing so he would
place not only the strike, but the entire organization, in
jeopardy, and himself in prison. Of all methods yet employed
to procure the commission of a crime, this one is certainly the
most unique. Clever — no, the story is not even clever. It is
coarse and inconsistent with the remainder of this felon's story.
Do you not remember that he said they conducted their cam-
paign of destruction with profound secrecy? Do you not
know that such acts must be done in secret? Do men herald
such acts to the world? No! No! Those are the class of
acts that are kept under the bushel. Indeed, they must be
kept under the bushel. Whatever success attends them de-
pends on secrecy. Yet this man Hockin took every chance
of heralding it to the world by picking out a stranger, and
forcing him, against his will, to commit a crime. Do you
believe such stuff? Is this man to hang on such testimony, or
on the testimony of a man who lends himself to such unreason-
able stories to gain his own liberty, together with a thousand
dollars in cold cash on the side? Cash — that was a mere
"gift" to show that the people of Los Angeles County were
good fellows! Do you remember the umbrella story? Here
is another, equally corrupt, unreasonable and false. A story
so utterly and completely at variance with the methods of
secrecy that must be employed under such circumstances can
only be looked upon with disgust. And to him must be turned
a deaf ear, consigning him to dwell among those angels whose

Page sixteen

The Western Comrade

wings, while on earth, were made of iron barrels, and leaden
balls, and whose trails were slimy with human gore.

Now let me tell you what really happened. You will re-
member that the resolution of 1906 was being rigidly en-
forced. That there was a strike on in Detroit. That the
union men were suffering defeat in every quarter and the
dissolution of the union seemed inevitable. Consternation was
abroad and their hearts were sinking into despair.

At this moment McManigal came to Hockin. Who was
McManiga! then? Not a perjured villian, nor an angel, but
merely a man who, like other men, was in the struggle to better
his condition. He was, like the others, struggling for higher
wages and an eight-hour day. He had been a miner, accus-
tomed to handling and using dynamite. He knew the terrible
havoc that would be strewn in its wake. He was cunning as
a fox, stealthy as a cat and conscienceless as a viper. It is to
this man that the campaign of destruction is due.

He went in secret to Hockin. I think I can hear him, whis-
pering his mildew into Hockin's ear as he tells him of his
former occupation and how he could turn the tide in their
favor by destroying the property of their enemies. We can
almost hear him say, "I can run down to Tiffin, Ohio, and
get all the dynamite we need. My uncle and father live there,
and I know the men in the mines, and they will sell me the
stuff. You give me the money and I will buy the dynamite
and fuse, bring it back, and you can leave the test to me.
On thaj: night you had better be somewhere all the evening,
for they know you and they might arrest you. I am not known
and they will never suspect me. Take it from me, Hockin,
after this is over they vnW be afraid of more to follow and
they will make peace vkith us."

Facing an inevitable defeat and sinking in despair, Hockin
grabbed at this fatal straw. Money was supplied and McMan-
igal started on his way to Tiffin. There he met his father and
uncle, to whom he told his story with the glee that always
shows in the face of the man who is about to commit what
he believes will be a successful crime. His father and uncle,
of kindred criminal blood, lent their assistance to him in his
mad career. The dynamite and fuse were bought and he
went on his way with them to Detroit. You vknll remember
with what cunning he opened the door leading from the alley
into the building, where he placed one charge and lighted
the fuse. Then, closing the door, he returned to his room,
where he had left the other two charges for other buildings.
Soon the crash came. Then, lying on his bed, he heard the
calling of the newsboys, "All about the great explosion." I
think I can hear him chuckle as he cut the item from the
paper and sent it to his uncle and father, telling them of his
great success. Does not this fact prove beyond all question
that his story was false; that he was not forced to commit
the crime; that he was not acting under protest; but that the
crime was of his own choosing; that he was proud of his own
accomplisment? And that he hastened to tell his accomplices
of his glee and of conquests yet to come?

Looking up and down the street, he saw a policeman at
each corner. He thought that he was discovered. Going
hence to his own room, he cut the other charges into small bits,
dropped them into the closet and repaired to the street, leaving
no trace behind. Rather a successful man to have been
chosen by chance. No, he was not chosen by Hockin. He
vvas chosen by himself to carry out his own dire plot. He did
it with skill, and cunning, and success.

And Hockin? What became of him? He was arrested, as
McManigal said he would be. He had prepared his alibi. He

was at a banquet. He was soon released, and, congratulating
each other, they discovered that they had launched a unique
campaign of destruction, with McManigal as the chief actor
and with Hockin as the directing general. These two, and no
more, knew the facts at the time.

This job at Detroit, according to McManigal, was the first
job pulled off. It was in 1 907. Immediately thereafter Hockin
went to Indianapolis and revealed the plot to J. J. McNamara
and Ryan. He told them of McManigal'^ plan and how they
had successfully carried it out; how the strike was settled and
the union men in Detroit had been put to work on the wrecked
building. I think I see these officers as they sit in consterna-
tion, listening to the story and the proposals of this terrible
campaign. They were confronted by an overpowering enemy.
Their efforts were futile. They were suffering defeat after
defeat at the hands of the Steel Trust, with no hope of success
by using methods previously employed. They were losing
their old and staunch metnbers. Members were quitting who
had faithfully fought long and hard and who were being forced
by hunger to heed the call for bread. The organization was
disbanding. Despair was abroad in the ranks, and unless
something more effective could be done the union would soon
be a thing of the past. Dangerous as was this new plan, and
though criminal in its character, yet these men, as all men
engaged in war, felt that any course that would save their
organization, and hence the lives of their members, was justi-
fiable. Expensive as it might be, and dangerous as it might
become, they concluded that nothing could be more expensive
nor more dangerous than a funeral. They could not see that
such a course led inevitably to the grave, but hoped, as all
men in despair hope, that whatever will save for the moment
will save forever.

And thus the campaign of destruction was launched. At
that time only the four men, Hockin, Ryan, J. J. McNamara
and McManigal, knew the plan.

That all matters might be understood and settled beween
them, McManigal was brought to Indianapolis. It was then
and there that the terms were settled and agreed upon. You
will remember that McManigal said it was a matter of business
with him. That he did not care to go from work to dynamiting
and thence to work again. That he would either have nothing
to do with it or he would make it a business and work at it all
the time. The price agreed upon was $200 a shot, all things
furnished and expenses paid.

McManigal testified that he was told not to visit Indianapolis
nor to be seen with J. J. McNamara except at long intervals.
Do you know what this means? It means secrecy. Secrecy
is the primal necessity of such an undertaking. The union
movement would not support such a course. The law con-
demned it. Public knowledge meant failure. Stripped of
every trace that would lead to Indianapolis and communicating
with that office through Hockin, the machinery was ready and
McManigal went on his way.

For the first time in the history of the Iron Workers' Union,
dynamite was purchased. I say this without fear of contra-
diction. The prosecution broke into the office of the Iron
Workers' Union at Indianapolis, took all the records, and is
armed from head to foot with all the facts in the case. Had
there been any purchase of dynamite previous to this state, the
records would have disclosed the fact. The prosecution would
have presented those letters and you would have been apprised.

["Was Schmidt Guilty?" began in the May number and will run for
several months. Back numbers, ten cents a copy.]

The Western Comrade

Page seventeen

The Socialist Party — Where Is It? i

y M. M.

EAST and West, North and South, the Socialist Party
has been rent asunder. Fragments have split off;
factions have formed; schisms have been created.

' World-wide problems have wrought world-wide havoc

v«th every institution, and nationalism has risen superior to
internationalism. The Socialist Party of every country has
suffered.

But in the United States where the party was weakest, where
the leprosy of dissolving party membership has reduced the
membership and the tuberculosis of falling vote has closed the
field of new recruits, while the mal-nutrition of lost interest
has brought despair to the entire movement, the effect has
been even worse.

Two factions have been forming for some time. One looks
backwards to Karl Marx for instruction, and regardless of
present day necessities, of the problems of this period or of the
exigencies of new conditions turns,' like the Moslem, its face
always to the East.

The other faction faces the problems
of today and looks toward the logic
of today for the answers. Without de-
precating the wisdom of Marx, this fac-
tion gently reminds the Socialists that
Marx is dead, and that the dead hand
of the dead Socialist is no less dead
than the dead hand of the dead cap-
italist.

Two significant conventions have
been held in the last few months.

One was at Fresno, February 1 7,
18, and 19. California Socialists met
and formulated two constitutions, the
majority report and the minority
report.

The other was at St. Louis, April 7.
The emergency convention met and
formulated a majority report and three
minority reports.

At Fresno there was a desire on the
part of the majority to make a more radical constitution, to
adopt timely measures, to use methods that would lead the
party forward.

At St. Louis, the majority had nothing new to offer.

The Fresno majority constitution carried by a three-to-one
vote.

The St. Louis majority report is being suppressed by the
authorities as being seditious, and a number of prominent
Socialists are in jail or out on bail as a result of distributing
them.

It is not the fact that the St. Louis majority report is sedi-
tious that makes it significant; the efforts of the radicals
everywhere are likely to be considered as such by the powers
that be.

The significant thing is that those assumed to be leading
thinkers in the Socialist movement of America had nothing
constructive to offer in the face of an emergency and in the
face of dwindling membership and a reduced vote. They
could suggest nothing to overcome these conditions. They
merely reiterated their position, known to every one who has
ever given the Socialists even a moment's thought.

How different the sentiment at Fresno! There constructive
measures were not only given a hearing, but were adopted.

T^HIS is the new clause that is to
deliver the Socialist Party of
California out of the hands of those
who have choked it slowly till life
is nearly extinct, who have prevent-
ed co-ordinated action, who have
made it an ineffectual shell:

"Socialist Locals shall be organiz-
ed without regard to political sub-
divisions. The jurisdiction of said
Locals shall be confined to members
thereof."

State Secretary Williams has compiled a brief statement in
which he has enumerated the chief changes. They are well
worth noting:

Chief Provisions of New Constitution.

First — Four regular referendum elections per year — in January, April,
July and October.

Second — State Executive Committee to consist of nine members, to be
elected by Industrial Groups.

Third — Work of Locals confined to propaganda, education and organ-
ization. Locals will have nothing to do with the political activity of the
party.

Fourth — Locals will have no territorial jurisdiction. Locals will have
jurisdiction over their own members only.

Fifth — Any five individuals may unite and organize a Local without
regard to residence of members or the territory covered.

Sixth — There may be as many locals in any community as there are
groups of five or more desiring to unite in forming a Local.

Seventh — All existing branches will automatically become Locals and

o rrr-otjnized by the State Office.
Eighth — All of 'the political activity of the party will hereafter be admin-
istered by all of the party membership, without regard to Local organiza-
tion.

Ninth — No group of comrades can get to-
gether in a city or county and assume control
of all political activity of the party, nor can
they interfere with any campaign being con-
ducted in some political subdivision of the city
or county.

Tenth — In case a majority of the members
residing in two or more political subdivisions
of the city \%ish to do so, they may co-operate,
providing a majority of the members in each
subdivision are agreed.

Eleventh — Members of the State Executive
Committee automatically become State Organ-
izers for the particular Industrial Group elect-
ing them, and are amenable to said group.

Twelfth — All members at large will pay
$2.50 dues per year, payable in advance.

Thirteenth — All new applicants for mem-
bership in the party must pay $1 on admis-
sion, to be applied as follows : Twenty-five
cents for the State Bulletin, 15 cents to pay
for the national dues for three months, and
60 cents to be applied to the State Organiza-
ion fund. The member in return therefor will
receive the State Bulletin for one year, and a membership card, duly
stamped, for three months.

The Socialists of California are endeavoring to put the parly
on a firm foundation. The Constitution was adopted only after
a systematic and careful study of conditions had been made.

The conservative element fought it with the arguments
conservatives usually use. They \vished to continue in the
same old way.

One of the worst features the Socialists have to contend
with is the professional disrupter. He is the man loudest in
his talk of the "bourgeoisie" and the "proletariat," of the
"class struggle" and the "working class." With these words
he establishes himself as a Socialist, and then begins system-
atically to drive out those who really belong to the working
class and who feel the class struggle without forever talking
about it.

Under the old Constitution the best locals were constantly
being broken up and the best workers disgusted by the tactics
of these disrupters, many of whom were honest enough in
their intentions.

Under the new Constitution it is easy to form new locals,
and those who come to cause dissension cannot hold a local

(Continued on page 22)

Page eighteen

Agricnitnre

The Western Comrade

News and Views in Agriculture

Laying Contests Have Shown apart. This will result in the formation of rather compact heads and the

„ , „„_ , . 11 11- entire plant may then be cut for use. For an early crop in the North, the

Ihat the zUU-egg hen is a very substantial present-day reanty. „i, , u ij u . . j • u .u j u j: j . i . j

*, . . r? r 1 1 • r 1 1 1 ocfi plants should be started m a hotbed or cold frame and transplanted as

Ihat It IS possible for the domestic fowl to produce more than ZDU eggs l j r i .■ r .l o .l .l

i.iQ. .o j^^^i.o.1^.^ ^^, ...>. i- 66 soo„ 35 hard freezes are over. In many sections of the South the

'" 4i 1°°*^':" '^* ^yf- ... r 1 1 L r 1 1 seeds are sown during the autunrn and the plant allowed to remain in the

ihat high fecundity is primarily a strain or ramily rather than or breed. „,„.,„J „„„, , ,;„.«, r i u u i.- .■ u u u ■ .l

_, ° ,.■' r rill ir 11 1 • ground over winter, rrequent shallow cultivation should be given the

ITiat the selection and mating of highly prohfic birds can result m a ^^^p. ^^j jj ^^. ^„j ,^„j^^ ,^„^^^ j^ j^^,^^j ^^^. ^^^ ^^^^^^ _^_^_^,[^^_

marked miprovement of the average egg production. some form of partial shading may be necessary.

That the conlmued selection of breeding stock upon lines that emphasize p^^ ^^^j ,^„^^^_ gj^ goston, Hanson and California Cream Butter are

inherent tendency to ovarian activity is inclined to alter the weight and ^^^j varieties. For loose-leaf lettuce, Grand Rapids or black-seeded

conformation of certam pure breds. ,,,.,,, , . Simpson are recommended.— United Stales Department of Agriculture.

Ihat the average weight of the eggs from both high and low producing
strains can be materially mcreased through selective breeding. D^^-j Use Rhubarb Leaves

Ihat the trap nest or the single-bird pen is the only absolute index to a
bird's capacity for egg production. Because rhubarb leaves contain certain substances which make then;

That when other things are equal the so-called mongrel may be the poisonous to a great many persons, specialists of the United States Depart-

equal, if not the superior, of many strains of pure breds, ment of Agriculture warn housewives against using this portion of the

That the absence of male birds from the laying pens does not affect the plant for food. A number of letters have been received by the depart-

egg yield. ment calling attention to the fact that certain newspapers and magazines

That the heavier breeds are the best winter layers. are advocating the use of rhubarb leaves for greens, and that disastrous

That an abundant supply of plain, wholesome food in conjunction with results have followed the acceptance of the advice. — United Stales Depart-

proper housing and management is conducive to increased production. ment of Agriculture.

That the cost of feeding does not in itself make for profit or loss in the _. . . _

poultry business. Value of Peanuts for Oil and Meal

That the efficiency of different so-called standard rations cannot be ex- Qne ton of peanuts will yield eighty gallons of oil valuable for human

actly determined from their use m connection with small expenmental pens f^^j purposes, as salad oil and in cooking, and 750 pounds of meal, which

of birds of unknown performance.— Charles Opperman m The Country ^^^tains 48.26 per cent protein and 9 per cent fat and makes a more

Uentleman. valuable live stock feed than does cottonseed meal.

A Good Contact Insectide for Sucking Insects p P^"""' °'' jf T,i°Lnam'''\^'"'^°T!,■u '""t ''^'^^'nmnnr^'^n'""

France uses about |D,UUU,UUU gallons of edible oil and Zi,WO,OuO gallons

Lime _ _ 40 pounds of low-grade oil in the manufacture of soaps each year, while Germany

Sulphur (flowers) 30 pounds uses about 6,000,000 gallons of high-grade oil. It is noteworthy that of

Water, to make „ _ 100 gallons the 1,500,000 gallons of peanut oil annually imported to America more

,, . . 1 . ^ ,1 1 L I iL- J £ »L I I I than half passes through and is used in the manufacture of oleomargarine.

Heat in a cooking vat or other vessel about one-third of the total quan- ■■ .. '^ .j..., " *

tlty of water required. When the water is hot, add all of the lime, and at

once add all of the sulphur, which should previously have been made into Tlit Improvement of Nurserv Stock

a thick paste with water. After the lime is slaked, another one-third of

(he water should be added, preferably hot, and the cooking should be In order that nursery stock may be improved in the broadest sense of

continued for an hour, when the final dilution should be made, using either the word, the orchardist must be continually on the alert to observe all

hot or cold water, as is most convenient. The boiling due to the slaking of that is desirable among Nature's raw materials, the chance seedlings and

the lime thoroughly mixes the ingredients at the start, but subsequent stir- bud sports; the plant breeder must take the most desirable traits from

ring is necessary if the wash is cooked by direct heat in kettles. After the the best we have in each fruit and endeavor to combine them; the scien-

was has been preapred, it must be strained through a fine sieve as it is tific investigators of our experiment stations must enter the practically

being run into the spray tank. — Fred P. Roullard, Horticultural Commis- neglected field of root stock investigation and determine not only the

sioner, Fresno County. affinity behveen stock and scion, but the root that is best adapted to

I . I, A * certain soil conditions and best adapted to resist insect pests and plant

Locating tne Apiary diseases; while the nurseryman, profiting by all that these have done, must

In selecting a location for the apiary, dense shade is objectionable, get out of the rut of blind and though dess following of old horticulture'!

whether it be brush, arbor or large trees, on account of the inconvenience *"''= '^af have naught but antiquity to recommend them, and he must

of getting swarms, which will use this for a settling place. It is also objec- f""y understand the great responsibility resting upon him as counselor and

tionable on account of keeping the early morning sun away from the bees, S»'^^ '° ™3"y orchardists. He should never forget the cruel dlsappo^nt-

and thus keeping them m the hive late in the day, when they should be at ™^"* '» ^°"'^ °"^ 'f'*' •""«' inevitably follow either his carelessness or

work.— J. B. King, Texas Department of Agriculture. his dishonesty if he should allow stock to leave his hands other than that

which his customer desires. He must place his business on a higher plane

Use for Peanut Hulls than that of mere buying and selling, and must feel that it is his m'sslon

,,.,... , . 1 f 1 1 11 T I 1 ,- to be an agent in helping Nature add to the welfare of mankind. — A. L.

Utilization IS now being made of the peanut hu I. In Johnson County, y^-^^^^^ ^oma Rica Nursery, California,
lexas, a contract was closed recently for a hundred carloads of peanut

hulls to be used in a mixed feed for live stock. This utihzation of the entire Government Aid for Purchase of Tractors

peanut plant will no doubt prove a factor in feed prices next season.

The general opinion of fieldmen in that section is that the forthcoming ^^ ''^1'*" Ministry of Agriculture has issued a notice fixing rules

peanut crop will be more profitable to the producer than in the past seasns. whereby agricultural bodies and societies in Italy may obtain a government

i^_ £ g__ in Jl^g Country Gentleman. contribution toward the cost of acquiring tractors for mechanical plowing.

The grant will be conceded to these bodies up to thirty per cent of the

Radishes and Lettuce Directions for Planting 'otal cost and, the Board of Trade Journal states, this figure may be in-

_ ,. , , , , . , . creased to forty per cent in the event of not less than five tractors being

Radishes and lettuce are favorite plants in small gardens because, while employed in any one Province. In the case of private persons the grant

these are attractive additions to the table, they are in a way luxuries on „;!! „„( g^ceed twenty per cent. This is not only a practical solution

which many housewives hesitate to spend money „f ,he p^blem of greater production that we hear so much about but

Lettuce does not withstand heat well and thrives best, therefore, in ^ij^ ^jghty good co-operation between government and farmers.— "The

the early spring or late autumn. In order to have the leaves crisp and Organized Farmer."
tender it is necessary to force the growth of the plant. The usual method

of growing the plant for home use is to sow the seeds broadcast in the bed Sweet clover is adapted to a wider range of climatic conditions than any

and to remove the leaves as rapidly as they become large enough for use. of the true clovers, and possibly alfalfa. — United States Department of

It is better, however, to sow the seeds in rows fourteen to sixteen inches Agriculture,

The Western Comrade

Co-operation

Page nineteen

Co-operation the World Over

Notes About t^he, Chief Co-operatives Gleaned from Many Sources

The Salvation of Irish Farming — Co-operation

the struggling fanners of Ireland were exploited lo the point

In 1

of a bare subsistence by railroads, middlemen, commission men and bank-
ers. Families vegetated in grinding, degenerating poverty, until nearly ail
the ambitious young men, cognizant of the doom which awaited them on
their own soil, emigrated to Amenca.

Sir Horace Plunkett, father of co-operation among farmers in North-
western United States, after making an exhaustive study of Irish conditions,
proposed as a remedy for this wretched poverty — co-operation. With the
assistance of the enthusiastic Father Finlay, Plunkett induced a group of
farmers in 1889 to form a co-operative creamery, the first co-operative
enterprise in Ireland.

'Ihe first year this society did a business of $21,815. The next year
Plunkett organized sixteen more creameries, which in 1891 did a business
of $251,910. At this juncture the movement was strong enough to enter
the field of co-operative banking. Not having a rational and adequate
credit supply, ihey established a series of co-operative banks and credit
societies, lending money for one and two per cent less than that lent by
private companies. This last move aroused the forces of capitalism to a
realization of the powerful enemy in the person of Co-operation. For
seven years the corrupt interests fought the movement bitterly. But
co-operation triumphed, and to-day is the most inspiring agrarian move-
ment in the world.

Ireland now has the following co-operatives: 193 agricultural, 235
credit, 18 poultry, 18 home industries, 52 pig and cattle supply, 10 flax
and 29 miscellaneous. In 1913, 985 co-operative societies did a business
of $16,665,900. There are 300,000 farmers in Ireland, more than a
third of whom are enrolled in the various co-operative societies. All of
this has been accomplished under the auspices of the Irish Agricultural
Organization Sociey, organized and directed by the inspiring genius of Sir
Horace Plunkett.

The results? The incomes of the farmers, by abolishing the sources of
exploitation through co-operative endeavor, have almost been doubled.
Fanning, previously the most dismal occupation in the island, has become
a joy and a science. Ambitious and energetic young men and women are
now remaining on the farms, gladly taking up the occupation of their
parents — the best proof in the world of a thriving rural population.

What a contrast here to the suffering and privation of competition!

Alaska Indians Operate Co-operative Stores

Through the assistance of the United States Bureau of Education, Alaska
Indians at Hydaberg. Southeastern Alaska, have been guided in the organ-
ization of several co-operative stores, in order to abolish the criminal
exploitation at ihe hands of unscrupulous traders. At these stores the
natives may exchrnge their wares and purchase the necessaries of life at
a legitimate price. The stores are owned and operated by the Indians
themselves. Twelve months after the establishment of the co-operative
store in Hydaberg the Indians declared a cash dividend of fifty per cent,
and still had sufficient funds at hand to build a larger store.

The Co-operative League of America
One of the most important organizations in America formed for the
purpose of educating the people to an appreciation of the value of co-oper-
ation IS THE CO-OPERATIVE LEAGUE OF AlMERICA, with headquarters
at 70 Fifth avenue. New York City. The aims of the league are: First,
the explanation through leaflets and pamphlets of the p.-inciples underlying
the successful operation of co-operative stores; second, the investigation
of commercial and industrial conditions in the United States in their rela-
tion to co-operation, so that co-operative enterprises can be advised as to
how and where to adapt themselves to special conditions peculiar to this
country; and third, to furnish expert counsel to co-operatives in the
administration of their business and financial transactions. The member-
ship of the league is composed entirely of earnest students of co-operation
who are interested in the growth of the American movement. Persons
interested in co-operation are urged to become members and to write for
information.

The Practical Value of Co-operation

The co-operative movement is teaching people to do things for them-
selves without asking or accepting aid from the state. It is teaching the
workers to administer the affairs of society on every scale. It is raising
up from the ranks of labor raen who are capable of large enterprises.

In its conflicts with the forces of capitalism, co-operation is the only

force that has triumphed. Great trusts have gone down before it. In
Switzerland it vanquished the beef trust, in Sweden the sugar trust, and
in England the soap trust. It has prevailed against great obstacles.
Whereas the workers have notoriously suffered defeat at the ballot box
in their contests with privileged interests, the co-operators, in their great
contests with the vested interests, have always won the victory.

The powerful combines, with capital, unscrupulous cJjntrol of politics, and
the force of vested interests behind them, have been beaten by organiza-
tions largely composed of working people. Co-operation has succeeded
against the greatest economic odds. — James Peter Warbasse.

Co-operation is the act of working together towards a common end or
uniting for a common purpose. The success or failure of co-operation
lies not in co-operation itself, but m the individual who co-operates or
fails to co-operate. — California Fruit Exchange.

Co-operative Bull Associations

Co-operative bull associations are formed by farmers for the joint own-
ership, use and exchange of high-class, pure-bred bulls. In addition, they
may encourage careful selections of cows and calves, introduce belter
methods of feeding, help their members market dairy stock and dairy pro-
ducts, intelligently fight contagious diseases of cattle, and in other ways
assist in lifting the dairy business to a higher level. Incidentally, the
educational value of such an organization is great. The history of the
co-operative bull association shows that it is especially adapted to small
herds, \\here a valuable bull for each herd would constitute too large a
percentage of the total investment. Thus the organization enables even
the owners of small herds to unite in the purchase of one goc-d bull and
each to own a share m a registered sire of high quality. Though still in
its infancy, the co-operative bull association movement promises eventually
to become a very great factor in the improvement of our dairy cattle.
At the present time there are in the United States thirty-two active bull
associations, with a total membership of 650, owning about 120 pure-bred
bulls. — United States Bureau of Animal Husbandry.

Co-op)erative Canneries

It is estimated that the co-operative canneries of the United States
handled over $158,000,000 worth of the canned and dried fruits and vege-
tables marketed last year. Practically all of the co-operative canneries
m the United States are found in the Pacific Northwest and California, the
annual business of these organizations ranging from as low as $50,000 to
as high as $1,500,000 for a single cannery. The most successful co-opera-
tive canneries now in operation are those which put up or pack a wide
variety of products over a long period, some starting with strawberries in
May and continuing until December with late vegetables. By utilizing the
various products as they mature, the operating period may be extended
to about six and one-half months. — United Slates Office of Markets and
Rural Organization.

The Value of Co-operation
Co-operation does away with the grave evils of debt, especially in con-
nection with little shops. The curse of housekeeping on credit is the
irresponsibility it breeds, and in checking this irresponsibility co-operation
has strengthened self-reliance and self-control in a thousand homes. But
it has done far more than check reckless domestic expenditure. The
co-operative store trains men and women to act with prudence, and edu-
cates them in the business of wisely conducting their own affairs. A
positive sense of responsibility is fostered by co-operation, and in learning
lo manage the store co-operators gain an experience that is invaluable for
good citizens. — Joseph Clayton.

Co-operation in Holland

Of the 958 creameries in Holland, 680 are co-operative; of its 291
cheese factories, 201 are co-operative. Co-operation in Holland is used
also in other lines of agricultural manufacture. Of 21 potato-flour fac-
tories, 13 are co-operative. There are six co-operative strawboard mills
and two large beet-sugar co-operative factories. One co-operative artificial
manure factory supplies half the fertilizer used in Holland. Holland has
600 credit banks, affiliated with three central banks, all co-operative. —
Paul V. Collins, Pearson's.

Co-operative Banks in Italy

There are 900 co-operative banks in Italy and, until recently, they did
not even have government inspection, yet their losses for a term of years
averaged only six hundredths of one per cent. — Albert Sonnischer.

Page twenty

Magazine Summary

The Western Comrade

What Thinkers Think

The Substance of Instructive Articles in June Magazines

Review of Reviews
Present Agricultural Situation. — For the first time we are thinking agri-
cuhure in terms of a nation. If we are to have a big increase in
acreage the nation as a whole and not farmers as a class must take a
hand. The Department of Agriculture brings to the farmer vast stores
of scientific information and seeks to stimulate co-operative efforts on the
part of the farmer, and to help him to market products. By planting such
legumes as soy beans, cow peas and peanuts the meal supply can be
supplemented materially this summer. Co-operation must be the watch-
word. There is no other means of eliminating waste. Wheat ground in
a hand grist mill in the kitchen is as good as most patent breakfast foods,
and much cheaper. — Carl Vrooman.

International Socialist Review

Shop Control. — The part that organized labor should take in the man-
agement of industries is the question of the day in England. At the Trade
Union Congress the president disclaimed any desire on the part of the
workmen to manage their employers' affairs, but claimed the right to con-
trol their hours, living conditions and the character of their foremen. Even
enlightened employers consider this unsatisfactory. Labor unions must
assume responsibility towards society. The development of labor control
of industries will proceed as fast as labor shows the requisite power cmd
undersanding, and the essential thing in modern progress is the devoted
co-operation with the State of the hitherto irresponsible proletarian trade
unions. — Austm Lewis.

Century

Europe's Heritage of Evil. — ^The Roman Imperial idea of the essential
unity of mankind and the supremacy of law based upon reason and divine
command failed before the Ottoman assault on Constantinople, and the
future was seen to belong to the separate nations which alone possessed
a strong sense of unity. This national feeling developed into an irrespon-
sible sovereignty of the state before which individual rights and welfare
had no existence. Even the French revolution merely transferred this ab-
solutism to the representatives of the people. The modern state has be-
come an economic as well as a pohtical organ of society; it is in fact
a stupendous and autonomous business corporation, the most lawless
business trust, viewing the other nations as business rivals. It is absolutely
free from effective business regulation and has immensely concentrated
wealth such as kings and emperors never had at their disposal. In
struggling for supremacy they adopt principles of action for which in-
dividuals would be ruthlessly suppressed as dangerous bandits. If there
were no economic questions involved the conflict of nationalities would
soon be ended. And with all this wealth and power, it is in the richest
nations that discontent is deepest and most wide spread. States, like in-
dividuals, must admit their responsibilities to one another and take their
place in the society of states in a spirit of loyally to civilization and
humanity. — David Jayne Hill.

North American Review
Industrial Americanization and National Defense. — After a considerable
period of trying to put efficiency into industry from the outside "experts"
and employers alike are coming to see that the real development of efficien-
cy is from the inside and is a matter of the spirit that prevails throughout
the business. An organization interested in organizing its human side
can do no better than put its best executive, not its weakest and most
amiable, in charge of the work. The spirit he needs is a combination of
a sound realization of business values and a quickened sense of industrial
justice. A system of promotions and transfers, the provision of proper
incentives, and American standards of living will release great stores of
energy now shut off. — Frances A. Kellor.

Everybody's.
The Wings of the U. S. A. — When the world comes to, after the war
madness, it will discover that the air has become a safer sphere to travel
than the land. One man makes two trips a day from London to the front
in France, taking over a good car and bringing back a broken one. He
boasts that he can bring almost any machine across the channel if the
motor will pull it. A machine can only be used twenty-four hours at the
front. Then it needs a week's repairs. It takes six men and three machines
to keep one flying man in the air. over the front. Machines are being
built that can carry from one to two tons, with planes so wide and strong
and stability so certain that men can move about on their wings and adjust
their engines while in full flight. — William G. Shepherd.

Independent
Woman's Place. — The National League for Woman's Service has been
established under the supervision of the Department of Labor, to make the
best use of the present opportunity for organizing the abilities of the
women of the United States. The idea is to systematize and co-ordinate
the action of the many women's organizations and to concentrate them on
the tasks for which they are best suited. The war has already demon-
strated that bread is as essential as bullets, and the food problem of the
United States can be very simply solved by preventing waste in buying,
preparing, cooking and serving, and by planting home gardens. Besides,
women are being encouraged to learn their husbands' business, so that
when the man is called away the wife may be able lo maintain the family's
economic status. — Maude Wetmore.

World's Work

The Rise of the Russian Democracy.~The early history of Russia was
a long struggle under autocratic chiefs to establish its territorial security.
In the nineteenth century the movement for liberation began. In 1861 the
serfs were emancipated. In 1864 the Zemstvos, local provincial councils,
were established. A long educational process followed, marked by con-
tinuous oppression on one side and occasional acts of violence on the
other. The Duma was the next step forward — 1905. The Duma and the
Zemstvos kept up the educative processes, and co-operative societies grew
like mushrooms, and through them the educated classes were finally able
to effect a union with the peasants. The bureaucracy, in its last struggle
against constitutionalism, at last in this war went to the length of treason.
If the Kaiser had appointed some of the imperial ministers he could not
have chosen better men for his purpose. In this emergency the army had
to depend on the Zemstvos for its food and munitions, and when the revo-
lution finally occurred the Zemstvos officials took charge of all the national
offices. — Samuel N. Harper.

The Fra

Children Nowadays. — One of the illusions with which we mislead our-
selves is that "this generation is a peculiar one" and that we, their parents,
are inadequate to the task of solving the problems with which they are
confronted. But this is not our business. Each set of parents are hyphen-
ated citizens of the age in which they are rearing their children, while the
children themselves are natives. We find fault with the children — for what?
For not being as old as we are! I offer the suggestion that our first duty
is to grasp intelligently and sympathetically our child's viewpoint of life,
and not vent on them our middle-aged desire to stagnate under the belief
that we are correcting them. Our children are as good and as wise as we
were in childhood. Heaven knows they could not be much worse or more
foolish! — Strickland Gillilan.

Scientific American

The Technology of the Washroom. — A fellowship has been established
at the University of Pittsburgh to investigate the problems of the laundry
man. Soaps and cleansing solutions are being scientifically tested in order
to make the laundry superior to home work not only in cleaning clothes,
but also in the preservation of fabrics. The exact effect on various fibers
of different processes of washing and drying are being investigated, and a
portable chemical laboratory arranged expressly for the laundryman's use
in testing the material he has to purchase. With this outfit any laundry-
man can become his own assayisl.

World's Work

Labor. — The representatives of the organized labor movement have re-
cently adopted propositions relating to the share which wage earners should
take in the war. Their work in producing material and munitions is as
important as that of the soldier at the front. They should accordingly be
protected as regards conditions of work and pay, and this can only be done
by giving the organized labor movement the greatest scope and opportunity
for voluntary effective co-operation in spirit and in action. Industrial
justice is the right of those living in our country. With this right is asso-
ciated obligation. In time of war this may call for more exacting service
than the principles of human welfare warrant, but this service should only
be called for when the employers' profits have been limited to fixed per-
centages based on the cost of processes of production. Labor. further re-
quires that there is a clear differentiation between military service for the
nation and police duty, and that military service should be carefully dis-
tinguished from service in industrial disputes. — Samuel Gompers.

The Western Comrade

Book Reviews

Page twenty-one

Reviews of Recent Readable Books ^y p. Bobspa

"A Gennan Deserter's War Elxperience"

"A German Deserter's War Experience," now in its second printing, is
the str£iightfor%vard narrative of one of the many Gennan Socialists forced
to go to the trenches against his will. After fourteen months he deserted
and succeeded in reaching America. The book surpasses even MacGill
m its uncovering of the horrors of war to the common soldier — for this
young comrade did not have to pass his manuscript through the hands of
the army censor.

Here we read of the wholesale shooting of officers by their o\vn men;
we see hundreds of dead thro\\Ti like cordwood to one side to make room
for further advances; the trees streuTi ^s^th entrails, heads, arms and legs;
dead and partly dead buried, hundreds together, in big graves; see men
held in subjection by cruel and brutal force of the junker class; Hsten to
the discontented mutterings of the German soldiers.

^^en the Gennan army was mobilized three years ago the men were
ignoTcmt, up to almost the time of the first engagement, of what country
they were to fight against. "The soldier is told 'The Belgian is your en-
emy,' and he has to believe it. . . . 'Never mind; shoot as we order,
and do not bother your head about it.' " The author was detailed to help
execute some of the poor Belgian civilians and describes the full horror of
his feelings. He tells graphically of the hand-to-hemd street fighting, re-
lating in one case how one German soldier bit a large piece from the face
of an "enemy" and the reaction so sickened the victor that his life was
ruined.

^liile the storj' is mainly devoted to plain narrative, one sees much of
the psychology of ^^'arfare — how the men gradually become like beasl<:.
Trench warfare is described — body lice, head lice, rotting corpses and cJl.
The famous Christmas interchange of greetings between the French cmd
German soldiers was participated in by the writer of the book, whose
name is withheld for the sake of his relatives still in Germany.

This soldier found the Belgian ci\'ilians at first friendly to the Germans.
The German soldiers ^vere severely punished whenever caught feeding the
starving \vomen and children or in any way sho\N'ing consideration for
them. One of the excimples of the means used to inflame the minds of
the "mass butcherers" against "the enemy" was to station guards at all
wells and declare the Belgians had poisoned the waters, while the tired,
hot soldiers went plodding on almost dead from thirst. .At times they dis-
regarded the soldiers stationed on guard and drank to their limit from the
"poisoned" wells — without any damage to themselves.

The officers seldom went into action. They \\ithdrew to a place of
safety, as a rule, leaving the men in charge of pettj' officials. After ser\'ing
fourteen months in the war \v'ithout any money, the young man obtained a
furloush, only to leam that the govemment-o\vTied railroad \v'ould not
carr\* him until he was able to pay for his carfare. X^liile the book deals
^^•ilh his personal experiences in the German army, the author, as an anti-
militarist, hates all war and his narrative is non-partisan. The little volume
(which sells at $1) is worthy of \vide distribution in this hour of labor's
fight. It is one of the most illuminating docinnents the war has vet pro-
duced. (B. W. Huebsch, New York.)

"Woman : Her Sex and Love Life"

The world owes a wonderful debt to Dr. William J. Robinson, "the
sane radical," for his series of books on sex, eugenics and birth control.
Twenty years ago he began his crusade for a rational conception of life,
and has taken the public into his confidence in his many popular books,
while reaching the medical profession regularly through "The Critic and
Guide."

"Woman: Her Sex and Love Life," is the latest addition to the little
library Dr. Robinson has written. Having examined scores of books on
the subject of sex. I have nearly abs'ays felt, when through with them, that
thev might just about as well never have been written, because they were
so haz>' and left the reader in ignorance of anything specific.

There are those who imagine all e\-ils of life due to woman; others of
the Vance Thomson school \vho think all that is wrong in the \v'orld sprang
fro!n the male. Dr. Robinson vie^^■s both sexes as human beings. He
doesn t attempt to make any kind of sweeping generalizations. His is the
first book on %voman from a sex standpoint that has covered the sroimd.
There is no phase of the subject that is not taken up, and I ^vould like to
see the day when every mother would give his book to her daughter at an
early age.

The nasty-minded will look in vain throughout the 400 pages for any
satisfaction. The book is plain and common-sense, but is pure and chaste

to a degree that not even the black shade of Comstock could find an
excuse to take it to court. The mission of the book is "to increase the
sum total of human happiness." It \vill do this In direct ratio to its sales.
The hocus-pocus of the medicine man and priest is dropped, and Dr. Rob-
inson strips the element of mystery and the fogyism of past generations
from the subject.

Perhaps a list of chapter captions -will give some idea of the scope of
the book: The paramount need for sex knowledge for girls and women;
the female sex organs: their anatomy; the physiology of the sex organs;
the sex instinct; puberty; menstruation; abnormalities of menstruation;
the hygiene of menstruation; fecundation or fertilization; pregnancy; the
disorders of pregnancy; when to engage a physician; the size of the
fetus; the afterbirth and cord; lactation or nursing; abortion and mis-
carriage; prenatal care; the menopause, or change of Hfe; the habit of
masturbation; leucorrhea, the whites; the venereal diseases; the extent
of venereal disease; gonorrhea; vulvovaginitis in little girls; syphilis; the
curability of venereal diseases ; venereal prophylaxis ; alcohol, sex and
veneral disease ; marriage and gonorrhea ; marriage and syphilis ; who
may and who may not marry; birth control, or the limitation of offspring;
advice to girls approaching the threshold of womanhood ; advice to parents
of unfortunate girls; sexual relations during menslrution; sexual inter-
course for propagation only; vaginismus; sterility; the hymen: is the
organ necessary for impregnation? frigidity in women: ad\'ice to frigid
women, particularly ^vives; rape; the single standard of sexual morality;
difference between man's and woman's sex and love life; maternal im-
pressions; advice to the married and those about to be; a rational divorce
system ; what is love? jealousy and how to combat it ; remedies for
jealousy; concluding words. (The Critic and Guide Company, New York
Cit>-.)

"The Gun-Brand: A Feud of the Frozen North"

"The Gun-Brand: A Feud of the Frozen North," by James B. Hendryx,
ought to prove a popular seller this season. It is "snow stuff," to borrow
Charlie Van Loan's movie language. "The Promise" and "Connie Morgan
m Alaska" acquainted the public %vith the powers of Mr. Hendrvx as a
novelist. The storj* is intensely interesting from the moment Chloe Elliston.
granddaughter of old "Tiger" Elliston. braved the unkno\vn wilds of the
frozen norlhland to found a school for the Indians, to the last page where
she looks into the face of the big Scotch trader emd miner and tells him
something that makes further chapters unnecessary. What occurs to make
this page possible will keep one sitting up late, no matter how sleepy. But
there is nothing of sensationalism. The intrigues of the quarter-breed free-
trader, the whiskey runners, the gun fights and the final battle between
the rival outfits give scope for continuous action. Only one scene might
be aueslmned — the punishment of Pierre Lapierre, the bad man of the
novel. With the gun sight MacNeal deliberately mutilated the face of the
man. The description is vividly written. While he merited even this
Dunishment — so far worse than death — one shudders at reading of it.
Tlie fierce passions of man ^\■here the elements preclude the success of
the weakling, the etemal appeal of "the love of a lass and a laddie,"
combined with a skill in narrative, make "The Gun-Brand" one of the
season's distinctive books. (G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York City.)

"The Story of the Grand Canyon of Anzona"

Science and art blend in an attractive booklet, "The Story of the Grand
Canyon of Arizona," a popular illustrated account of its rocks and origin
by H. N. Darton, geologist of the United Stales Geological Survey. The
purpose of the guide "is to point out the more important relations of the
rocks and to outline their history and the conditions under which the
canyon was developed. Care has been taken to avoid technical terms so
far as possible, so that most persons should have no difficulty in under-
standing every part." In addition to photographs, there are maps, cross-
sections and lettered views. (Fred Harvey, Kansas City. Mo.)

"The Mythology of All Races"

The Marshall Jones Book Company, publishers of "The Mythology of
All Races." the most monumental work of its kind ever attempted, an-
nounce that Professor Axel Olrick of Copenhagen, one of the most distin-
guished scholars in the field of mythology, who was writing the volume of
Eddie Mythology, died in February. He had practically finished his work
on the book and his Scandina\'ian colleagues will complete his task. There
are to be thirteen volumes in the completed set, each written by the
world's best authorities in their respective fields.

Page twenty-two

The Western Comraae

Quo VadiS? (continued from page 9)

men are but the garden variety. The fact that the sons of
the middle class are sinking eighty-three per cent into the
workinr; class, fourteen per cent into the professional class, and
three per cent into the capitalist or, rather, middle class, shows
conclusively the signs of the times. It will bring on revolution,
you say. Perhaps. But mob revolutions but play into the
hands of the Napoleon. It would simply be St. Bartholomew's
night for labor. The revolution of the proletariat would sim-
ply be a butcher's feast. Workers can be hired, for wages, to
kill those who seek wages.

So there is. then, no hope for mankind?

Yes, there are already stars in the social skies that point the
way. Let the iconoclasts silence the argument about right or
wrong, and band together, not with rifles, but with tools. Let
them play the game the capitalist plays, for their collectivity.
Let them co-operate. The hope for the present and the future
lies in industrial and co-operative action. It lies in adapting
ourselves collectively to capitalistic requirements. It can be
done now, here, without delay. The world has closed the
debate on co-operation. The victory is awarded to collectiv-
ism. Competition in business has been weighed and found
wanting. Co-operation broods with creative force over the
wreck and ruin of dying order. No longer need we argue.
We must act. We must enter the field with pitchforks, not
pamphlets. We must enter the diggins with spade instead of
speech.

Collectivism does not come as the idealist wanted it.
Through the using of an instructed working class, it looms
up as the result of economic pressure upon those who hold
the places of responsibility.

The Play House (continued from page 1 7)

tapped her foot against the floor. "Just a minute. Miss, and
I'll ask Mister Wyler if he knows anything about them."

She found a haggard-faced man, with a great pile of papers
still before him.

"Pardon me. Mister Wyler, "but we can't find Cedric."

"Er — what, Jane?"

"We can't find Cedric," she repeated. "He and the little
Roberts girl. I fixed him a lunch and he told me they were
going to have a picnic at the playhouse. Do you happen to
know where that is? It's getting late and we're worried."

Jane had never been told about the cabin, and for a mo-
ment Wyler did not comprehend, but suddenly he remem-
bered. That was what Cedric had called it on his one visit
there. Hastily rising, he hurried from the house.

"I'll find them," he called back.

He went down the path through the woods, now growing
darker every minute, and what memories the old path brought
back! Laura and he had spent their honeymoon days in that
little cabin. What a wonderful picnic time it had been! He
stopped short in amazement. Even now there was a light
twinkling at the window!

He strode forward and pushed open the door, only to stop
stupefied.

There before him at the tiny table sat the two children and
the woman who had been his wife!

The silence was long and heavy, and she was the first to
speak.

"Don't scold us, please, Malcom! I came last night on the

same train with Cedric, although he didn't know it, and no
one saw me. I didn't mean to bother you. I didn't suppose
you would ever come here, and you remember I had a key, too.
But when the children came this afternoon I made them stay,
for I thought maybe you would come to hunt them ! "

She had begun bravely enough, but her voice broke pitifully,
and tears brimmed the 'big brown eyes as she looked at him
beseechingly. What a child she was, and how like Cedric
when he had been in mischief and wanted forgiveness! All
the man's hunger for her surged through him overwhelmingly.

"You wanted me!"

The glad incredulity of his words was heartrending, and
she nodded mutely, to find herself crushed in his arms. Her
answer had wiped out all differences. Nothing else mattered.

Cedric drew himself up proudly as he looked at Alice. He
had heard enough to know that some ceremony was necessary
in a matter of this kind. Jane was largely responsible for his
knowledge of ethics, but he was sublimely sure that everything
was coming right. Alice could no longer call them "queer."

"I guess," he said, with adorable dignity, "that we'll get
some preacher to spoil that divorce, 'cause my family seems
real crazy about each other! See! My mother is patting my
father's cheek!"

The Socialist Party --Where Is It?

(Continued from page 1 7)

down to a few members, forbidding other locals to be formed
within its territory. The day of the troublemaker is to be less
easy than of yore. Their absolute control of the party is gone
forever.

Another important provision is the industrial organization
of Socialists. Instead of mixed locals, it will be possible to
form industrial locals, composed of members of a craft or
calling. There wll be nine industrial groups, and the state
organizers of these groups automatically become the state
executive board.

The classification of members into groups is as follows:
Farmers, Miners, Transportation Workers, Manufacturing
Workers, Building Trades, Printing Trades, Housekeepers,
Office and Service Workers, Professional Workers. They are
to be registered as such in the state office.

It is planning to make organization as easy as possible, and
to make it as difficult as possible for those enemies of the
party to get in as they have in the past.

In California everything is for progress. In California the
Socialist party first began to deteriorate. It had gone down
until something HAD to be done. And, when that time came,
the loyal members did it. They have forsaken tradition and
have plunged forward, ready to risk making the mistake of
a wrong procedure, but enitirely unwilling to stand still an''
constantly look back to the Past for guidance.

To stand still meant further decay. To change the c.'d
method and to go onward might invite disaster, but no disaster
can quite equal that of senile debility.

Will it work? The next few months will show that. But, at
least, there is the certainty that nothing is to be lost and
there is every likelihood that much is to be gained. The
motto of the Socialist party was never better apolied than
when applied to the Socialist party of California before the
new Constitution was adopted: "Workers of the party, unite;
you have nothing to lose but your chains, you have a world
to gain ! "

The Western Comrade

Page twenty-three

Important Notice!

Dear Comrade:

It has come to our notice that enemies of this Col-
ony have inspired an attack that is calculated to do
us considerable injury unless our installment members
and correspMJndents are able instandy to discover the
nature of the attack, and understand its real character
and aim.

It you receive a printed circular well designed to
cast suspicions upon the integrity of your comrades
who have worked ceaselessly with honor and in good
faith to make this Co-operative Colony a success, you
will know that certain influences inimical to your in-
terests and to the interests of the Colony are at work.

If you receive such a circular, please communicate
with us at once concerning the matter, and we will
give you information covering developments in the
case.

This attack was timed when Comrade Harriman,
founder and president of the Colony, was in New York
as a delegate to the World's Peace Conference.

All we have ever asked is even-handed justice and
fair play.

Many times we have been asked if we did not fear
that our demonstration of success would bring in-
sidious or open attacks by the agents of capitalism.
Our answer has been that we are proceeding with
honor and sure intent, and that we did not despair of
successfully defending ourselves against any injustice.

Our protest at this moment is against circulars sent
out without fair and honorable investigation and a
hearing of our side of the case. If you have received
any circular, will you not do us and yourself the jus-
tice to write us fully, to the end we may explain or
aid you to dispel any doubts planted by your enemy
and ours?

We are making a success of a great co-operative
enterprise and we shall continue it. We do not expect
to do this without difficulties and, possibly, attacks.
All we ask is fair play, and you can help us get it.
Will you do this much for your pioneer comrades here
on the front who are making a demonstration of the
power of collective effort with the view that the move
may spread to universal co-operation among all men?

Yours fraternally,

THE BOARD OF DIRECTOEIS,

Llano del Rio Company.

Llano Job Printing

The Llano del Rio Printing and Publishing Department is now
equipped to handle job printing.

Cards, leaflets, booklets, stationery, etc., will be handled in a
satisfactory manner, and at prices which will compare more than
favorably with those found elsewhere.

All \vork will be given the union label unless otherwise re-
quested. Every employee is a Socialist and a union man.

The Llano Publicatians, Llano, California.

What Are You Good For?

Did you ever try to find out?

Are you employed at work for which you are best fitted?

Do you KNOW or are you GUESSING?

Your children — what will you advise them to do?

Tlie science of Character Analysis will answer the questions you have
asked yourself. It is not fortune telling. It is not guess work. It tells you
what you are fitted for and gives you the reasons. It tells you why
you have not succeded in what you have attempted and will show you in
which lines you can hope to succeed.

An analysis of yourself will cost you something and it is worth many
times what it costs; but information about it — that is free. Just write:
"Send me free information about Character Analysis and Vocational Fit-
ness." Write your name and address very plainly. Send it to:
P. 0. Box 153, UaRO, Califonua

Reduced Freight Rates

on Shipments of

Household Goods

from all Eastern points

to California

Members of the Llano del Rio Colony will find it especially
advantageous to make their shipments throagb the

JUDSON Freight Forwarding Co.

443 Marquette bldg, Chicago: 324 Whitehall bldg. New York;
640 Old South bldg, Boston; 435 Oliver bldg, Pittsburg; 1537
Boatmen's Bank bldg, St. Louis; 518 Central bldg, Los Angeles;
855 Monadnock bldg, San Francisco. WRITE NEAREST OFFICE.

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Rates: 25c a line for one insertion; 15c a line thereafter. Twelve words
to the line. Advertising payable in advance.

MIDDLE-AGED GENTLEMAN, of good morals, desires correspondence
with womanly woman of some refmement, education and in good health,
between ages of 28 to 36. No neurotic or prude. Object, matrimony.
"Serious," care of this journal.

"THE NEW EARTH." Ocean beds become vast fertile plains.
Earth watered from \vilhin; even deserts bloom. Deductions solidly based
upon divine laws. Fifty cents, no stamps. Cross Publishing House.
Nuevitas, Cuba. JJA

FOR SALE.— BREEDING RABBITS. BELGIANS. NEW ZEALANDS. AND

Remish Giants. We can supply all ages up to eight months. For further
information address Rabbit Department. Ll ano del Rio Colony. Uano. Cal.

YOU CAN BUY THE LLANO PUBLICATIONS IN SAN FRANCISCO
at the People's Library, 2079 Sutter street, and at 1350 Fillmore street

Have You Enrolled in the

$2000 Subscription Contest?

This is the Second Grand Membership Circulation Contest.
It commences July 1 and finishes December 31.

Now Is the Time to Enter

Write at once for full information about this opportunity to
earn a membership in the Llano del Rio Co-operative Colony.

Next month we will be able to announce the name of the winner of the first
contest, which closed June 30.

If you enter now and work steadily, you may be the winner of this contest.

Here Are The Premiums

First Prize, a LLANO MEMBERSHIP
Second Prize, 500 shares Llano stock
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Other Special Premiums to All Who
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Write at once for complete information, literature, rules, subscription
blanks, etc.

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The Llano Publications, Llano, California

/')

I'-

■■f^fvF^

WESTERN
COMIADI

Walter Thomas Mills

who has now associated himself with the Llano del Rio
Co-operative Colony, will contribute a special exclusive article
to the WESTERN COMRADE every month.

Walter Thomas Mills is known the country over for his
keen insight into economic and social problems, and his con-
structive economic policies, and his alignment with the prin-
ciples of "Co-operation in Action" will be welcomed by our
readers.

What Next?

By Walter Thomas Mills

Inspiring Editorials by
Job Harriman

WALTER THOMAS MILLS

Editorials 3

By Job Harriman.

Llano Getting on the Map 6

By Robert K. Williams.

What Next ? 8

Walter Thomas Mills, who is now a memher of the
Llano del Rio Co-operative Colony, discusses Current
Problems.

Unfair District Representation 9

By Cameron H. King.

For the Length of the Story (Fiction) 10

By Helen Francis Easley.

Why Not Ragtime? 12

By Professor A. G. Wahlberg

Montessori — ^What It Achieves 13

What Shall We Do To Be Saved? 14

By Dr. John Dequer

Fires of Love .15

By Ethel Winger
Was Schmidt Guilty? 16

Fourlh Installment of Job Harriman's Address to the
Jury in the Schmidt Trial

Co-operation the World Over 18

News and Vievk's in Agriculture 19

Reviews of Recent Readable Books 20

By D. Bobspa

Poems: To the Ideal 2!

By Dr. John Dequer

A Workingman's Soliloquy 21

By Clinton Bancroft

August 1917

Price 10c

The Gateway To Freedom

Through Co-operative Action

THE LLANO DEL RIO CO-OPERATIVE COLONY is located in
the beautiful Antelope Valley, in the northeaslern part of
Los Angeles County, Southern California. This plain lies
between the San Gabriel spur of the Sierra Madres on the south
and the Tehachapi range on the north. The Colony is on the north
slope of the San Gabriel range. It is almost midway between
Palmdale, on the Southern Pacific, and Viclorville, on the Santa
Fe railroad.

The Llano del Rio Co-operative Colony is made up of persons
who believe in the application of the principles of co-operation
to the widest possible extent. Virtually all of the residents are
Socialists. It is a practical and convincing answer to those who
have scoffed at Socialist principles, who have said that "it won't
work," who have urged many fallacious arguments. In the three
years since it was established, the Colony has demonstrated thor-
oughly the soundness of its plan of operation and its theory. To-
day it is stronger than ever before in its history.

GENERAL INFORMATION

The Llano del Rio Colony is the greatest Community enterprise
ever attempted. It was founded by Job Harriman, May 1st. 1914,
and is solving the problem of disemployment and business failure.
It oifers a way to provide for the future welfare of the workers
and their families.

An abundance of clear, sparkling water coming from mountain
springs is sufficient to irrigate thousands of fertile acres. The
climate is mild and delightful, the soil is fertile, and markets are
not far distant.

The Llano del Rio Colony is a horticultural, agricultural, and
stock-raising enterprise, with such manufacturing as will supply the
needs of the colonists, with perhaps something to sell when the
Colony has grown.

It is a perfect example of Co-operation in Action. No community
organized as it is, was ever established before.

The purpose is to solve the problem of unemployment by provid-
ing steady employment for the workers; to assure safety and com-
fort for the future and for old age; to guarantee education for the
children in the best schools; and to provide a social life amid sur-
roundings better than can be found in the competitive world.

It has more than 800 residents, makins it the largest lovni in the
Antelope Valley. More than 200 children attend the schools. The
County school and the Colony Industrial schools are both in oper-
ation. A new public school will be built for the 1917-18 term.

The Colony owns a fine herd of Jersey and Holstein cattle,
100 head of young stock are on the range, being heifers and calves
up to 2 years of age. Over 100 head of horses and mules, in-
cluding colts, are owned by the Colony. These, with two tractors
and caterpillar engine, four trucks, and numerous autos, do the
hauling and the work on the land.

A recent purchase of Duroc-Jersey sows gives the Colony thirty-
eight registered high-class breeding sows and two splendid boars, the
nucleus of a great development along this line. Many new pens
have been built. Registration will be kept up and the raising of
fine hogs made one of the leading industries. There are also some
fine Berkshires. and a large number of grade sows.

The Colony has more than 400 acres of orchards.

Community gardening is successful, and an increased acreage
will be put in each year.

The ideal is to farm on an extensive scale, using all manner of
efficient labor saving machinery and methods, with expert and ex-
perienced men in charge of the different departments.

Llano possesses more than 668 stands of bees. They are cared
for by expert bee men of long experience. This department ex-
pects to have several thousand stands in a few years.

The Colony has secured timber from the San Gabriel Reserve,
and has a well equipped sawmill. Lumber worth $35 to $40 a thou-
sand will cost the Colony only a few dollars a thousand.

Social life is delightful. A band, several orchestras, a dramatic
club, and other organizations assist in making the social occasions
enjoyable.

Alfalfa does extraordinarily well at Llano. Much has been plant-
ed and the acreage will be increased as rapidly as possible. Six
good cuttings a season can be depended on. Ditches lined with
cobblestone set in Llano lime, making them permanent, conserve
water and insure economy. They will be built as fast as possible.
A square mile has been set aside for the new city. With the
sawmill running, the Hme kiln producing a very superior lime, and
with sand and rock abundant and adobe brick easily manufactured,
the time is near when permanent buildings will be erected on the
new site. It will be a city different in design from any other in the
world, with houses of a distinctively different architecture. Houses
will be comfortable, sanitary, handsome, home-like, modern, and
harmonious with their surroundings, and will insure greater privacy
than any other houses ever constructed. They are unique and de-
signed especially for Llano.

LLANO INDUSTRIES AND INSTITUTIONS

Among the industries of Llano, to which new ones are con-
stantly being added, are: Printshop, shoe shop, laundry* cannery,
warehouse, machine shop, blacksmith shop, planing mill, lime kiln,
saw mill, dairy, cabinet shop, nursery, alfalfa, orchards, rabbitry,
gardens, hog raising, lumbering, publishing, transportation (autos,
trucks, tractors), doctors' offices, woodyard, vinegar works, bakery,
fish hatchery, barber shop, baths, art studio, hotel, drafting room,
post office, commissary, camping ground. Industrial school, grammar
school, Montessori school, commercial classes, library, two weekly
dances, brass band, mandolin club, orchestras, quartets, socialist
local, soap making, tailor shop.

DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES

IN conducting the affairs of the Llano del Rio Community it
has been found that the fewer inflexible rules and regulations
the greater the harmony. Instead of an elaborate constitution
and a set of laws the colonists have a Declaration of Principles
and they live up to the spirit of them. The declaration follows :

Things which are used productively must be owned collectively.

The rights of the Community shall be paramount over those of
any individual.

Liberty of action is only permissible when it does not restrict
the liberty of another.

Law is a restriction of liberty and is only just when operating
for the benefit of the Community at large.

Values created by the Community shall be vested in the Com-
munity alone.

The Individual is not justly entitled to more land than is suffi-
cient to satisfy a reasonable desire for peace and rest. Productive
land held for profit shall not be held by private ownership.

Talent and intelligence are gifts which should rightly be used
in the service of others. The development of these by education
is the gift of the Community to the individual, and the exercise of
greater ability entitles none to the false rewards of greater pos-
sessions, but only to the joy of greater service to others.

Only by identifying his interests and pleasures with those of
others can man find real happiness.

The duty of the individual to the Community is to develop ability
to the greatest degree possible by availing himself of all educational
facilities and to devote the whole extent of that ability to the
service of all.

The duty of the Community to the individual is to administer
justice, to eliminate greed and selfishness, to educate all and to aid
any in time of age or misfortune.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION WRITE

Llano Publications, Llano, California

Political Ac tioB

Co-operation

Direct Action

The Western Comrade

Devoted to the Cante of the Workeri
Entered as second-class mailer November 4th, 1916, at the post office at Llano, California, under Act of March 3, 1879.

PUBLISHED EACH MONTH AT LLANO, CAUFORNIA.
JOB HARRIMAN Managing Editor. "^p» 7 FRANK E. WOLFE Editor.

Subscription Rate — 75c a year; Canada $1. Single Copies lOc; clubs of 4 or mora (in U. S.) 50c. Combination with LLANO COLONIST $1.
Publishers and others are invited to copy at will from the WESTERN COMRADE, but are asked to give credit. Nothing copyrighted unless so stated.
In making change of address always give your former one so that the mailing department may be certain that the right name is being changed.

VOL. V.

LLANO, CALIFORNIA, AUGUST, 1917.

No. 4

Editorials i

J Job Harriman

WHEN Constantinople falls, the real issues of the world
war will stand out in bold relief.

The Ottoman Empire will move its seat of government from
Constantinople to Turkey in Asia. The Empire will lie ad-
jacent to the Bosphorus, the Dardanelles, the Suez Canal, the
entrance to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. These are
the gateways of the world's commerce, and Turkey will still
hold the key to the situation. She lies so close to these gale-
ways that she will soon be a menacing power. She is at the
juncture of Asia, Africa and Europe. The gateways between
these continents are in the palm of her hand.

Each and every world power will be jealous of her advan-
tage. She will yield to none and have no friends among them.
The arena of war will be shifted to her fields. The hordes
of China, Japan and India can land in Turkey by water
through the Persian Gull as easily as the Occidental empires
can arrive on Turkish soil.

This war will end in a titanic struggle between the Orientals
and the Occidentals to control Turkey with the gateways of
the world's commerce.

Unless a peaceable adjustment is made before that crisis
comes. Occidental civilization may go down forever. Our
vitality is well spent. Three more years will exhaust the
Western powers while the Eastern powers will only be ready
to enter the struggle. The cry for peace without victory \n\\
then be too late. Peace vsithout victory may be possible now,
but that day will forever pass when war is declared between
Oriental and Occidental civilizations.

THE relations between nations are governed by treaties.
When treaties fail, nations resort to arms. For this
reason, all nations are constantly contriving to establish such
treaty relations as will make their combinations more powerful
than any other possible combination with which their interests
may conflict. Hence treaties come within the modern meaning
of preparedness for war.

The entire theory of treaties between nations is wrong.
They establish ambitions that lead as inevitably to war as do
armaments of nations.

This war has answered all arguments for preparedness. It
is answering with the lives of the first-born and the blood of
the nations. Whoever has believed that preparedness pre-
serves peace, can believe it no longer. Peace is not the child
of shot and shell, but of the deep and genuine affections of
the heart. Men will fight if they hate one another but they
will first prepare. Men will not fight if they love one another,
nor will they prepare.

How long would our nation last if each state were armed
and set against the other? How soon would the conflict arise
if the states were to enter into interstate treaties? Nothing
could more effectively aid and abet civil war than the right
of states to enter into treaties. These rights must be governed
by general law.

So also should treaties between nations be abolished. In-
ternational relations should be governed by international law,
and a parliament of the world established.

DIFFERENCES of opinion in these days of world stress
must be expected within the ranks of the Socialist party,
as well as within the churches, political parties and other
organizations.

What attitude should be assumed viath reference to the world
war will always remain a mooted question among Socialists
as among other people. These differences will arise not only
out of varying conceptions of economic causes, but also out of
moral ideals, religious and spiritual attitudes, patriotic
emotions, and different opinions as to what the war is all
about. Every phase of every question is being forced into
bold relief and our opinions and convictions must necessarily
be in a state of flux.

Some of our best members as well as some of the poorest,
will withdraw from the party, but this is also true of other
organizations. In this respect we will suffer less than any other
organization in the world that attempts to assume a position
on the war.

The churches have lost members by tens of thousands. The
really spiritually-minded people cannot believe that this
terrible slaughter, hitherto unparalleled in the world's history.

Page four

Editorial

The Western Comrade

can by any theory be excused Eunong the followers of the
Prince of Peace. They believe in his life, try to live according
to their convictions, and can not cease to abhor war and its
resultant butcheries of men.

The Democratic party fought untiringly for its candidate
because of his peace policy. Now it is rent asunder and its
forces are scattered to the four winds.

The Republican party is reeking with dissension, some in-
sisting that this country was forced into the war to protect
the interests of Wall Street, some that is was brought about
by the shippers of munitions, some one thing and some another.

The Progressive party has almost altogether disappeared.

The Socialist movement still lives, still weathers the storm,
and is increasing in cohesive force and power as the days
go by. The Socialist party has suffered and will suffer. There
is a difference of opinion in regard to the statement in the
majority report as to the policy to be pursued during the war,
but not as to the causes of the war. The Socialists the world
over agree absolutely that this war is the logical result of
capitalism. Those who leave the party are no less convinced
of this fact than those who remain. In all other organizations
men differ fundamentally but the Socialists differ only on the
matter of tactics. We do not even differ on the tactics them-
selves. When the question was put up to the National Exe-
cutive Committee as to what the members were to do with
regard to supporting mass action against conscription laws,
they refused to give advice but replied that each must act for
himself, act on his own responsibility and take the conse-
quences. This fact establishes beyond the least doubt that
that portion of the majority report was a mistake. Any state-
ment of a policy that cannot be actively supported is a mistake
and a tactical blunder.

It is upon this one point that we differ from the majority
report. And it is upon this point that the majority of our
differences rest. Upon the philosophy of socialism, imperialism
and almost all war questions, there is substantially no differ-
ence. The movement itself is not affected by internal dissen-
sion but has grown, and is growing stronger. The form of our
party organization is bound to undergo great changes in its
adjustment to the new conditions but this shows life and
adaptability, not death and dissolution. All organizations
that were in line with the capitalist system are in the process
of decay. The differences of opinion, the dissensions, and the
warring of conflicting interests and opinions will constantly
increase until final dissolution overcomes them.

The Socialist movement is taking on a new form. It is
just now passing from youth to manhood. It was born in
capitalism, thrived under its persecution and will arise to
power upon capitalism's decay.

o

THIS world refuses to be ruled by force, but pleads for love
to be its king. What service will life withhold from
love? Yet it will begrudge every trifle of service it renders to
torce. Love inspires service. Force inspires resistance.

DEMOCRACY! A wonderful word. Militarism! Equally
wonderful.

One is the child of the people ; the other is the child of the
plutocracy.

The one is humble; the other is ambitious.

The one is peaceful; the other is belligerent.

The one bears the world's burdens ; the other imposes them.

The one loves; the other hates.

The one governs by civil rules; the other by martial law.

The one forgives; the other condemns.

Is Militarism fighting for Democracy or is the world de-
ceived?

Believe this: Democracy will not follow this riot of military
power unless universal hunger sweeps Militarism aside and
opens the way for the human heart to function freely in love
and affection.

IS DEMOCRACY dead in America? Whosoever, thinks it is
is counting without his host. It is true that plutocracy has a
grip upon our institutions but it is also true that the American
people have enjoyed large liberties too long to submit to these
sudden suppressions. Freedom has been indulged in so long
in so many respects that it has become a matter of impulse
and instinct. This is the profound fact in American life.
Whosoever undertakes suddenly to crush it is as certain to
meet his Waterloo as death is certain to end the war.
o

FORTUNATE indeed is occidental civilization that the
crown of Russia has fallen. After it will go the imperial-
ism of Russia. Imperialism of Russia will be torn up, root
and branch. Socialism will soon be in full blast there.

Privately owned industries, the foundation of imperialism,
are being transformed into publicly owTied industries, the
fouF-dation of democracy.

Industries will no longer be operated in Russia yielding
fortunes to the few; but they will be operated by the nation,
yielding comforts to all. It is in fact that the security of
Western Europe lies. Had the Russian crown and imperialism
survived this struggle during another half-century of industrial
development, it is beyond the ken of man to conceive what
might have been crushed beneath its iron heel. But we need
not fear. Every militaristic government is only as powerful as
that portion of power which it has left over and above the
power necessary to hold its discontented element in subjection.

Every militaristic power confronts the same fact. Within
its bosom are the germs of its own decay. Every additional
call for soldiers adds to the popular dissatisfaction, reduces
the productive forces, increases the public burden and adds
discontented soldiers to the troops, until finally the arms of the
nation are in the hands of the discontented, when the crown
falls. The crowns of Germany and England are standing on
the brink of their graves. They are each pushing the other
into their tombs. It remains to be seen what they will drag
after them.

The Western Comrade

Editorial

WHO are the traitors? Are they the members of the
I. W. W. or the captsvins of industry?

President Wilson tells the story when he says the shipowners
"are doing everything that high freight charges can do to
make the war a failure. . . Prices mean the same thing
everjrwhere now, . . whether it is the government that
pays them or not."

Bisbee, Arizona, is suffering from the same fact of which
the President is complaining. The greed of the industrial,
commercial and financial kings is the trouble in Bisbee as
well as in foreign transportation. The ship ovmers have raised
the freight rates. There is absolutely no reason for it. This
act is as diabolical as the bottomless pit. Their cargoes and
bottoms are insured against loss. The bulk carried is enorm-
ously increased. The carrying cost per ton is less than ever
before, but the charges are outrageously high.

This fact the President says is "natural enough because the
commercial processes which we are content to see operate in
ordinary times have, without sufficient thought, been continued
into a period where they have no proper place. . . We
must make prices to the public the same as the prices to the
government."

There is but one way to make freight prices the same to
the public as it is to the government and that is for the
government to take over, own and operate the business of
transportation in times of peace as well as war. This holds
good alike on land and water transportation. The President
had as well tell a rattlesnake to put only a taint of poison
in its fang as to tell a merchant to add only a little unjust
profit to his charges.

Greed will not listen to the admonitions of the President,
however just they may be. Greed knows only how to gorge.
Gorging increases greed. Greed thrives on land and sea alike.

The mine owners and merchants at Bisbee are as viciously
greedy as are the merchants of the high seas. The prices of
food in Bisbee are soaring as high as the freight charges on
the Atlantic. The I. W. W. boys must have food if they work.
They cannot buy sufficient food at the present prices with the
wages they get. The mine owners refuse to raise wages, and
the merchants refuse to lower prices. The I. W. W.'s stand
between the devil and the deep sea; between the merchants
and the mine owners.

The merchants and mine owners, in the language of the
President, "are doing everything that high prices can do to
make the war a failure."

These boys cannot dig copper without food; without copper
we cannot make cannon; v^thout cannon we cannot slaughter
the enemy. Whether or not we should slaughter them is not
the question. The question is: Who is responsible for the
Bisbee strike?

The fact is the I. W. W.'s cannot work without food. They
cannot work without a fair wage.

Who are the traitors?

Why do they not arrest and imprison the strikers?

The answer is simple enough.

They have committed no crime. They are being deported
contrary to law by the mine owTiers and merchants who are
raising prices and lowering wages in violation of the laws of
life, who are the traitors.

Even though we are content to indulge such commercial
processes in ordinary times, yet since they have been carried
into this period where they have no proper place it is up to
the President to take over the mines and the storehouses and
to see that the men are treated as human beings, not herded
and driven about the state like a drove of cattle. It is high
time that the traitor merchants and mine owners and shippers
be handled by the government, and that their great iron jaws
and paws be taken from the trough for sure.

The President vinll soon be forced to the necessity of taking
over the mines and stores, else the mine owners and merchants
will, by sheer greed, lead this country to downfall and defeat.

NOW China comes clamoring to enter the war. Japan, too,
is on her way. And India is looking into the West.
In this hour of stress vAW they forget how the occidental
powers proposed their dismemberment only a few years ago?
Will they forget the days of Clive ?

Are they coming with the olive branch, oblivious to "The
Opium Wars" and the "Manchurian Slaughter"? Or is it the
mane, the lashing of the sides, and the thundering roar of the
lion of Asia, as it is waking from its centuries of slumber?
o

SO RAPIDLY did events take place immediately prior to
America's entry into the war and since that time, that the
American people seemed to have been psychologized by their
very sjjeed. Conscription and draft, censorship and suppres-
sion have come, individual liberties have been curtailed or
taken away, and there has been no organized opposition.
How long will it continue? Even now people are becoming
surfeited with rising in public gatherings when the flag is
displayed. Will they become tired of bureauocratic govern-
ment? In Europe several good jobs have been vacated by
gentlemen who held them by "divine right." In the United
States officials are taking on dictatorial powers and many
have become petty kings in the absoluteness of their power.
Does it prophesy the coming of a new day in this country or
is it that the people are just dazed and have not awakened yet?

WHOEVER and whatever employs brute force as a means
of survival invites the antagonism of the world. Who-
ever and whatever is gentle and loving invites the affection
and admiration and receives the aid and succor of all.

FORCE is the law of death. It possesses the powers of dis-
integration. It calls to its aid cruelty, hate, revenge,
tyranny and all things that make for destruction and death.

LOVE is the law of life. It is the only thing that possesses
cohesive power. It calls to its aid reason, patience, for-
bearance and all things that make for fjeace and growth.

Page SIX

Abon t Llano

The Western Cc

Llano Getting on the Map

By Robert K. Williams

PEOPLE are talking about Llano. Of course, some are
saying unkind and untrue things. And others are
saying pessimistic things. And some are drawing

liberally on their imaginations. Perhaps some are

even telling lies.

But aside from those who are talking fluently for and
those who are talking influentially against, there are others.

These others are asking questions. They are seeking in-
formation. They are neither for nor against. They have no
previous convictions and co-operation is not a principle with
them. They just want to know.

Here is an instance: '

Kate Richards O'Hare came to Llano and told us things
about ourselves that we didn't even suspect. She told us that
she had been asked by three large agricultural publications
to come to Llano to investigate our system of co-operative
farming.

That's fame! At least it is one of the stepping-stones to
fame. It shows that people are hearing about Llano.

When in Washington, D. C, in June, Comrade Harri-
man sitopped off to see a prominent official. He was granted
five minutes of that busy man's time by appointment. When
the five minutes was up, the official was so interested in the
account of Llano that Comrade Harriman talked for two hours
about Llano.

A governor of a state gave half an hour to listen to an
account of Llano while a crowd waited to hear him speak.

Men and women prominent in the radical movement, es-
pecially those who believe in constructive methods, want to
hear abodt Llano.

Phil Wagner, Kate Richards 0' Hare, and Walter Thomas
Mills have visited Llano within a month.

All came without notice. Meetings were held for each of
them, meetings that would have cost from $50 to $100 or
more anywhere else.

Hall rent is free, advertising is no expense and is unneces-
sary, music is a social service, and speakers give their ser-
vices freely when they come to Llano.

Kate Richards O'Hare spoke on war in general, but devoted
a portion of her time to Llano. And this is what she said:

"I am going out to the world and tell those who are eager
to hear the message, the story of Llano. I have something
new and encouraging to say. I am going to tell them that out
here in the center of the great Antelope Valley a band of a
thousand courageous pioneers has wrested from the grim
desert a home where the ideals of Socialism are not TALKED

about, but are PRACTICED in the every-day problems of life.

"You colonists may think you are comparatively unknovra
and unheard of throughout the United States. If so, I would
inform you that you are badly mistaken. While coming out
to the West on my lecture tour, I have been asked by several
large argicultural journals in this country to visit the Llano
del Rio Colony to secure articles for publication on the system
of food production and distribution practiced at Llano. And
I have been offered for this work many times more than the
labor to secure the information is worth. Is not that proof
that the eyes of the nation are on Llano?"

Mrs. O'Hare saw all of Llano that she had time to see, and
asked all of the questions that she could think of. And she
expressed herself as being pleased — more than pleased — wth
what "Socialism Applied" can achieve.

Comrade Phil Wagner made a short address when here and
he, too, saw the big ranch and was pleased with it. Like Mrs.
O'Hare, he found many friends and acquaintances here.

Walter Thomas Mills surprised and pleased his hearers by
telling them that he had concluded to join the Colony.

Comrade Mills is not without experience in colonization
ventures. He has visited Llano several times, has kept himself
in close touch with the project from the first, and is assured
of the success of the Llano del Rio Co-operative Colony.

He told his hearers many interesting things concerning the
war, the Colony, his personal experiences, and his ambitions
in connection with Llano. Comrade Mills is an organizer of
wide and recognized ability. He expects to initiate some new
lines of progress and to extend the influence of Llano in many
ways.

The same evening. Comrade Job Harriman, just back from
the East where he had attended the First Conference for Dem-
ocracy and Terms of Peace and had addressed a crowd of
20,000 persons in Madison Square, spoke to the colonists,
showing the meaning of America's entrance into the war, the
measures that are being taken, the reasons for these measures.
He said: "This war may last for years. It is a question
whether starvation or arms will terminate the conflict."

Had any other community held a meeting with Job
Harriman and Walter Thomas Mills billed as speakers, with a
band, with a hall to pay rent for, with advertising, etc., the
expenses would have been more than $ 1 00. Llano heard them
and there was no expense. It is one of the advantages of
living where rent is abolished, where profit is not the incentive,
where the only interest is the interest the people feel in their
community.

Left, honey tanks made at Llano to accommodate 1917 honey crop; center, Llano bakery products; right, making honey frames,

The Western Comrade

About Llano

Page seven

Progress on the Ranch

ONE of the most interesting phases of Colony activity is the
work being done in perfecting the tunnel.

This tunnel, begun over twenty years ago and abandoned by
the company undertaking it because of insufficient funds, is
situated about four miles south of Llano on the Big Rock
Creek where the Big Rock road forks to the right to Little
Rock and Palmdale, and to the left to Valyermo.

The purpose of the colonists in renewing work on this tunnel
is to secure the underflow of the Big Rock Creek that is now
seeping off into the sands of the desert where it is practically
wasted. The wide bed of the Big Rock Creek is a big sponge
of sand and gravel. By honeycombing the bed from under and
catching the underflow, it is believed that a very valuable ad-
dition to the present water supply will have been obtained.

The main tunnel runs north and south, just a trifle northeast
and southwest. It is parallel with the road, running under in
two places. It is 3075 feet in length, has an average width
of five feet and an average height of seven feet. Solid rock
has been tunnelled through almost the entire distance. There
are four air-shafts.

The incline shaft, situated at the south end of the tunnel,
is about seventy-five feet long, is forty feet underground and
has a pitch of thirty degrees. To haul up the gravel and rock,
the Colony's share of the welter in the Big Rock Creek is di-
verted into a lateral ditch and run down a race the full
seventy-five feet where a water wheel, manufactured and in-
stalled by the colonists, is stationed on the floor of the tunnel.
A tremendous power is thus obtained, sufficient to elevate the
cars containing 2000 pounds of gravel and rock to the surface.

At and near the incline five branch tunnels exist. These
branches veer in different directions, all of which go out under
the bed of the creek. One extends probably 500 feet to the
southwest. Two others, fifty feet in lenght, run almost due
south. In all of these, bedrock has been penetrated and gravel
reached, so that an appreciable flow of water is secured.
Another branch, originally started to serve as an additional
tunnel, and running almost due east, will in the future, be
extended up to the damsite which is about 600 feet east of
the main tunnel. Definite plans have not yet been arranged
with reference to the construction of the dam, but eventually
the underflow from the damsite will be carried through this
east branch.

The work of the colonists so far has been that only of clear-
ing away the debris that has accumulated in the abandoned
tunnel for years. As soon as the loose and encumbering gravel
and rock has been removed sufficiently, the further extension
of the branch tunnels will be eittempted. The work was begun
last winter and praiseworthy progress has been made.

A very material increase in the flow of water is anticipated
with the completion of the tunnels under the creek bed. One
of the colonists working in the tunnel recently met the con-
tractor who started the work over twenty years ago. The con-
tractor stated that far out under the bed of the creek is a
sump thirty feet deep, and that two of the branch tunnels run
to it. If, he said, this were reached a very decided increase
in the flow of water would result. These branch tunnels were
stopped with bulkheads at a short distance from the main tun-
nel before the work was abandoned. From these bulkheads
the seepage from the gravel bed behind them pours out in a
steady stream of water.

The present flow from the tunnel is about the same as that
in all seeisons and is now 1 30 inches. The limit to the increase
of this underground supply cannot be estimated accurately.

That a very material increase will follow as the tunnels are
pushed, however, is certain.

In addition to the tunnel work, the colonists are now in-
stalling a sump in the creek bed at the head of the Hubbard
ditch, about a quarter of a mile north of the mouth of the
tunnel. A small tractor will be used for power with which to
pump. It is expected that the sump will increase the water
supply considerably.

Llano's Social Life

ONE of the most artistically and daintily arranged social
events that have occurred in Llano was the wedding of
Miss Louise Vaiek and John Wesley Irwin, Tuesday night,
June 12. So harmoniously did all the details of the marriage
ceremony blend and so exceptional was the ability displayed

Left, Myrtle Kemp, flower girl ; right, Kathryn Miller, bridesmaid ; center,
Louise Valek (now Mrs. J. W. Irwin) ; rear, John Wesley Irwin.

in perfecting the arrangements, that the event deserves incor-
poration in the monthly ranch story.

When it became known that Miss Louise and Wesley in-
tended to slip quietly away to the city to join their fortunes
by having the knot tied, Mrs. Robert K. Williams conceived
the idea of having the wedding conducted along artistic and
orthodox lines. Both the young people approved the idea at
(G>ntinued on Page 22)

Page eigK

r o p a g a

nda

The Western Comrade

Whclt Next? By Walter Thomas Mills

THE trades unions have fought for the soli-
darity of labor for a long time. Still the over-
whelming majority of all the workers are un-
organized, misled, pitted against each other
and robbed in the same old way.

The co-operative societies have struggled for
solidarity and economy, both in producing and
in buying for a like period, and still the work-
ers are paying more to the plunder of private monopoly than
they pay for means of life. Unable to consolidate to exchange
their services with each other, they are scattered and robbed
on every hand.

For long years the Socialists have been preaching the doc-
trine of solidarity, a solidarity which they have approved
in theory but have never been able to achieve as a fact.

The world war has come to disorganize, to confuse and
finally, with one hand to break the power of the trades
unionists, the co-operators, and the Socialists, and with the
other hand, to force industrial solidarity and co-operative
economy as a war necessity.

What Shall We Do About It?

Staggered at this unexpected turn in things, and disappoint-
ed at long delays, still something must be done. Trades
unionists, co-operators, and Socialists have all been struggling
with the same problems — all have been seeking relief from the
same wrongs. They must not now stand still, stunned, con-
fused and silenced.

All the world over, the dominant political powers have con-
solidated. The exploiting forces in society as represented by
the various political parties and through these joint organiza-
tions, have become a single party as a military necessity in ad-
ministering war policies, but they have also become a single
party in aggravating and protecting both national and inter-
national gamblers in raising prices and in making war on
labor. In the face of this situation, the trades unionist, the
co-operator, and the Socialist cannot consent any longer to
go their separate ways, not even with the conviction that they
are separate paths, leading to the same goal. No matter how
these paths may show on the maps made by the theorists, if
kept separate, they can lead nowhere except to continued
disappointment.

ThingsNotToDo!

The trades unionist has accomplished very much, but there
are problems which cannot be solved by the weapons available,
only in an industrial dispute. The strike and the boycott can-
not reach and finally determine the questions involved in
land, transportation, banking and marketing. Other agencies
are available, and these other agencies must be used if labor
is to be completely emancipated or, if even the fruits of the
strike and the boycott are to be preserved.

The co-operators have sought to save the waste of duplica-
tion and the extortion of monopoly by voluntary association
in production and in purchase, but no co-operative society
less than the whole country itself acting through the agency
of the government, is sufficient to eliminate waste or to avoid
extortion in the control of natural resources, transportation
or in the great industrial and commercial monopolies. Their
power as citizens, as well as producers and purchasers, must
be brought into united action.

The orthodox Socialist has frequently won a debate in prov-
ing that the only final solution for both waste and extortion
is to be found in the political solidarity of the working class
but while they have won the debates, so far, they have never
won deliverance. Whatever may be true of the final solution,
the immediate task is not the final one and mere controversies
about the proper ending of the journey cannot help in the
overcoming of obstacles intinediately before us. Standing
aloof from trade controversies, avoiding responsibility for co-
operative societies, co-operative colonies, cash buyers associa-
tions, have been quite successful in escaping the real burdens
but have not been successful, either in having any share in
immediate progress or in misleading the public to suppose
that the Socialists were not incompetent, simply because in-

Stolen Joys

By Ethel Winger

Lake De Smet — you thief, with color stolen from

the sky —
You nestle smugly unashamed
Beneath Wyoming's snow-kissed hills.
In dreaming peace — and so do I.
I, too, forbidden, rashly brave.
Have come to dip beneath your icy wave.
And on your grassy banks, unclothed, unseen.
Except by noisy ducks and chiding gulls,
And flowers nodding on the green;
To lie, and dream the golden hours away.
Your breeze sings by with gentle warmth.
Your sun sends down a throbbing ray.
De Smet! — you thief! your waters stolen from the

sky —
You bask here unashamed in dreaming peace,
And so do I.

active in these particulars. Whatever may be true of the final
solution, the immediate task of the Socialist is to render some
vital service in the midst of the immediate difficulties or con-
fess himself without reasonable excuse for his existence.

What Next? '

If the above reflections are to be approved, then it is per-
fectly evident that the hundreds of thousands of people in-
terested in co-operation, the two and a half millions of trade
unionists, three millions of organized farmers, and the five
or six millions of people who are ready to give support to the
economic proposals of the Socialists, if freed from the preju-
dice of sectarian propaganda and the limitations of a partisan
spirit, must get together. That is next or the next can be
nothing other than the deepening of disaster.

The Western Comrade

Page 1

Unfair District Representation

By Cameron H. King

HE Socialist Party has always stood for a just and
proportional system of representation in the legis-
lative bodies of the country. The action of the
Fresno convention this year is however the first
attempt to really get action in a state-wide campaign for the
achievement of that object. An initiative proposition is now
being prepared by the committee elected by the convention
and pretty soon the petitions will be in the hands of the mem-
bership for circulation.

As a preliminary matter of interest the following facts are
published, showing the injustice of the district system of elec-
tions by the very unequal representation secured by the dif-
ferent groups of voters at the various elections held in the year
specified.

In 1912 for State Senator the Democratic Party cast 103,-
328 votes out of 301,345. It elected only four out of the
twenty-one Senators to be elected; whereas casting one-third
of the vote they were clearly entitled under a just system to
seven Senators. The Socialist party, casting 45,291 votes
should have been represented by three Senators. But they
had a predominating strength in no single district and were
left utterly without voice in the upper house of the legislature.
The six Senatorships which the Democratic and Socialist
voters were thus deprived of were gained by the Republicans.
This gave the Republican party an overwhelming majority,
16 out of 21, instead of the 10 they were properly entitled to,
and left the Senate misrepresentative of the will of the people.

In the elections for Assemplymen the same year, 1912, the
Democratic voters got only twenty-five candidates elected,
while if the election had been held under the proportional
system they would have elected twenty-nine. The Socialists
fared still worse. They were entitled proportionally to thirteen:
they elected only one. As in the Senate the Republicans ben-
efited by the unjust district representation system, electing
fifty-four members of the Assembly, thirteen more than a
majority. But their vote was so much less than half that they
were proportionally entitled to only thirty-eight, three less than
a majority. These figures show how the district system leads
to a direct misrepresentation of the popular will, giving to a
minority of the voters an overwhelming majority in the legis-
lature.

The injustice and unfairness of the district system of re-
presentation to the individual voter is seen in glaring colors
in this election. For instance, 91,785 socialist voters are given
only one representative in the legislature, while 272,774 Re-
publican voters only three times more numerous are given
fifty-four times that representation in the Assembly alone.
The Democrats, a little more than twice as numerous as the
Socialists, are given twenty-five times the representation. Even
so the Democrats with 75 per cent of the voting strength of
the Republicans got less than 50 per cent as much representa-
tion.

Turning to the Congressional elections of the same year,
we find the district system inflicting the same inequitable
results upon the electorate. For Congress the Republicans
cast 265,796 votes and elected seven Congressmen; the Demo-
crats cast 196,610 votes, nearly four-fifths of the Republican
vote, but they elected only three Congressmen, less than one-
half. The Socialists with 104,122 votes elected no one, while
the Progressives with 20,341 votes elected one Congressman.
This shows how utterly unrepresentative of the actual divisions

of the electorate the legislative bodies become under the dis-
trict system of elections.

In 1914, the inequitable operation of the district system
cannot be shown with the same startling discrepancies between
vote and representation because it was a year of political
confusion. For the Senate, to which twenty members were to
be elected, there were nine different groupings of electors
resulting from the endorsement of the same candidate by two
or more parties. Still some comparisons can be made which
show the almost total lack of relationship between the vote
cast by a group of voters and the representation they secured
in the Senate. For instance 79,390 straight Republicans
elected two Senators, while three-eighths that number, 29,564,
Progressives, also elected two. And a group of Republicans
and Progressive numbering 73,747 (more than 5000 less than
the straight Republicans) elected five Senators. Compare this
last group of Republican Progressives with the straight Demo-
crats who with 86,463 votes only elected four Senators. An-
other group of Republicans, Democrats and Progressives
numbering 10,072, elected two Senators, thus giving to each
voter of this group eight times as much influence in the
Senate as a straight Republican and four times as much
influence as each straight Democrat. 9,942 voters of Repub-
lican and Democratic faith elected one Senator; but 39,550
Socialists (four times their number) elected no one.

Such figures show that the district system of representation
is simply a hap-hazard system of misrepresentation. In 1912
the Democrats and the Socialists were the chief sufferers. In
1914 the Republicans find their representation one-half what
profxirtionally it should be.

In the Assembly elections, in 1914, the Progressives became
the victims-in-chief. They cast 147,762 votes which should
have entitled them to fifteen seats in the Assembly. The dis-
trict system with ruthless injustice cut them down to seven,
while at the same time, it gave to a combination of 57,196
Republicans, Democrats and Progressives eight Assemblymen,
one more for considerably less than one-half the number of
voters. And Republicans and Democrats in combination
numbering 42,300, less than one-third the number of Progres-
sives secured almost equal representation, six to the seven for
the Progressives. Of course, whosoever wins, the Socialists
lose. With twice the vote of this last Republican-Democrat
combination they got one-third the representation. They got
two Assemblymen when they were proportionally entided to
nine.

For Congress in 1914 we find the same old district system
beating the Republicans out of one representative among the
eleven to which California is entitled. 292,906 Republicans
elected only three members, whereas proportionally they
should have obtained four. 187,704 Democrats, 85,000 less
in numbers, elected as many Representatives as the Republic-
ans. In addition a group of 32,575 Democrats including a
few Socialists added one more to the Democratic representa-
tion. But the straight Socialists, twice as numberous, with
68,215 votes elected no one.

The confusion of returns resulting from the multiparty
grouping behind candidates continued from 1914 to the elec-
tions of 1916. And the inequitable results of the district
system shine through them just as clearly. 67,731 straight
Democrats succeeded in electing two Senators when they
should have had four. A combination of Republicans and

(Gintinued on Page 22)

Page ten

Fiction

The Western Comrade

"For the Length of the Story'' ^y "-»

ea Frances Easley

It offered no reason

Y the way, Marion, have you written that story yet?"
The tone in which the question was asked implied
a perfect understanding and good comradeship. It
was between dances and they were seated at the end
of the porch, where they could watch the other guests, and yet
were far enough away to permit a conversation without fear
of being heard.

"No, Perry."

The answer was not at all satisfactory,
and that was what the man wanted.

"And why not?"

"Because I donit know how."

"But you never have had any trouble writing others, why
should this bother you?"

"But a love story. Perry! I've never written one of those,
I just can't seem to imagine one," she said as the man laughed.

"Don't imagine it," he advised. "Such affairs happen
every day, can't pick up a paper without running onto a para-
graph which begins 'One of the most romantic secrets of the

season is just being announced .' Take one of those,

Marion, and with all the modern day conveniencies for speed,
you ought to fix up a corker!"

"But it wouldn't be quite fair, would it, to send some girl's
secret for a lot of people to read?"

"Oh, that's a case of 'they should worry,' but if you don't
like the idea, fall in love yourself, and write your own ex-
perience."

This time the girl laughed, a little tremulously, and fortun-
ately blushes are not discenrable on porches dimly lighted by
the moon. The soft dreamy strains of a waltz, which the
orchestra had just commenced, seemed scarcely more musical
than that little laugh.

"Why, I must admit that I had never thought of that. But
what good would it do to fall in love by myself? That
wouldn't be any experience. But I'll think about it. Really.
Now hurry along and don't keep your partner waiting. I
haven't this next dance, so I'll stay out here, thank you."

Fall in love! She was already so deeply in love, that it
hurt her to think of it just now. It had always been called an
immodest thing to give a love unmasked, and yet, how could
a person help it, when love insisted upon taking up his abode
in one's heart? The more one tried to keep him out the more
he persisted, and once in, there was no such thing as locking
him in and forgetting his presence. After all, being in love
did not always mean a great happiness.

And the man? The man was Perry! There had been only
Perry, for a long time, only she had not known it. She had not
known that there was anyone. She remembered when his
first real business success had come to him. She had been
so happy that she cried, even while she called herself a silly
little idiot, but she remembered that no other man's success
had so affected her, and suddenly she knew why. It was be-
cause he was the man, the one man who really counted.

She had not quite decided whether or not she ought to be
ashamed of her love. No one would ever need to be ashamed
of being in love with Perry! Manly and right, he held the
admiration and respect of everyone who met him socially or
in a business way. No, he was absolutely the sort of a man
a girl should care for, and as long as no one knew it, it could
not possibly bring sorrow to either of them, and perhaps some-
time everything would come right.

Marion had thought all this vaguely. She had never thought

to dwell on the one-sidedness of the affair. She was happy
to go about with him, glad when he was glad and sorry when
things went wrong for him.

Nor did she once allow herself to think that Perry showed
her any special attention. His interest in her stories was no
more than he would have given to anyone else under like
circumstances. Ever since the days of high school themes,
he had thought she was clever, and he wanted her to succeed,
and his "don't forget I'm rooting for you all the time, Marion"
had been a source of never-failing encouragement. But he
would have said the same to anyone of the other girls whom
he saw as regularly as he did her. As Alice North had said,
"He was one man a girl could be proud to go about with."
And when one of them announced that she was going to such
and such a place with Perry Bently, she always did it with an
dir of conscious pride that was adorable. There was no silly
sentiment in the attitude, it was merely a friendly tribute, and
no one had ever given it any other meaning.

As for Marion, her interest in Perry had not sp)oiled her
friendship with other men. She had always been a great
ravorite, her happy disposition made her so, and if she ever
tired of being a good fellow, no one ever suspected it.

She rested her hot face in her hands. She was glad that
she was alone just then. She had gone along happily, trust-
ingly and suddenly she had been awakened by Perry's advice
to fall in love. It hurt terribly, but even at that moment she
remembered that it might have been worse if it had come
later, and it couldn't last always. There was something stoical
in her reasoning.

Suddenly she sat upright. She would pretend! For the
length of a story she would pretend that Perry had fallen in
love with her. She would change names and places so that no
one would recognize them, but in her mind, no, in her heart,
it would be Perry's and her love affair. For that little while
she would be perfectly happy, she would dream and dream
that Perry cared more for her than for anyone else and had
told her so! She would pretend that the two had known
each other always, just as she and Perry had, and they had
always been the' best of friends, only he would be one of those
lovable stupid sort of men who never realize what they want
until it is almost too late. There would be another man, an
older man, who would pay her enough attention to bring Perry
to his senses. She laughed softly as she considered this sudden
acquisition of suitors, but it was only for the length of the
story, the love story she had said she couldn't write. And if
it was accepted she would tell Perry that he had given her
the idea, and he would consider it a good joke. It wouldn't
do any harm, she was sure of that.

The next few days were busy ones. Marion wrote and re-
wrote, considered and re-considered. It was really amazing
how the older man improved on acquaintance. She found
that they had a great many tastes in common. He had trav-
eled a great deal, in strange countries that were full of stories,
he was interested in the books that she read and altogether
he proved to be a very charming addition to her circle of
friends. Still she couldn't be quite reconciled to his blase air,
there was nothing of that about Perry. Then she would
always remember Perry's eyes and close curling hair. With
a start she thought of how tiny youngsters with fluffy curly
hair had always appealed to her. She drew herself together
sharply, before it occured to her that for the length of the

The Western Comrade

Fiction

Page eleven

Story her imagination, her dreams could lead her unrestrained
into all the dear fancies of heart-land. After that she would
have to put them away, if she could.

However, the old man continued to be attentive. Marion
had to admit that she admired him, and the family seemed
greatly impressed, all except Martha, the little sister, who
continued to think that Perry was simply the nicest person
she knew. But in the end Perry suddenly discovered that he
was in grave danger of seeing someone else win the girl he
loved, but Marion forgave him his negligence and everything
ended happily. Except that she was rather sorry for the old
man, he had been very, very nice to her.

Marion was pleased with her story. It was different from
anything she had ever written. In a way she had lived it,
part of it at least, her caring for Perry was no pretense, and
she had so woven the rest around that real part of it, that the
whole story seemed alive. She hoped it didn't seem conceited
to have made herself the object of two men's affections, when
in reality there seemed to be no one. That part amused her.
She was sorry when it was finished, and yet there was a sense
of happiness that she could not explain. No matter what else
came, that much was hers.

In a months time, the story was accepted, and Marion com-
menced to wonder whether or not she should tell Perry. Since
the night of the party the subject had not been mentioned,
although she had seen him a number of times. Yet he would
think it queer if she didn't tell him, she had never forgotten
before, and he had been just as pleased with each succeeding
bit of success as he had been with the first. Well, he was com-
ing up that evening, perhaps she would broach the subject,
although her heart pounded unmercifully at the thought of it.
What would he think! Had she been presumptuous? But then
it was only a story; he himself had suggested the method she
might use to imagine it. She was absolutely sure of his
attitude, he would be amused, nothing more, except, of course,
pleased that she had done what he was so positive that she
could do.

When he arrived that evening she was surprised to find that
the prospect of her confession did not disturb her in the least,
after all it was only a story.

"You remember, don't you. Perry," she reminded him,
"about telling me how I might write that love story? Well,
I did it!"

"Why, I told you to fall in love yourself, did you do that?"
As one would say of an actor in a moving picture his face
registered shocked consternation.

"Oh, not that. Perry," Marion reassured him, quite truth-
fully, for indeed she had not fallen in love with him for the
sake of writing about it. "I merely pretended and since I
know you so well, and you suggested the idea to me, I thought
you wouldn't mind if I pretended that you were the man, one
of the men, I mean," she added hastily.

"So there are more than one?" he queried, "a regular
eternal triangle affair?"

There was no sarcasm in the tone, but there was something
that would lead one to suspect that Perry would have been
more pleased if there had been only one man.

"Certainly," she replied blandly. "There are generally two
men in a love affair, especially in a story. The extra one
serves to keep up the interest."

"I see. But go on and tell me the story. I'm anxious to find
out my place."

Marion obeyed. It was rather an interesting little narrative
and she gave quite a complete outline. The man listened

intently, his expression changed at each turn of the story.
His first comment was startling.

"Who is the older man, Marion?" he demanded.

"The older man?" she echoed, not comprehending.

"Yes, he sounds like a pretty good sort, reminds me of
Captain West who was here last summer. Marion, tell me,
do you think him as fine as you have him in the story?"

Marion gasped. She had utterly forgotten Captain West.
He had visited her uncle that summer before and had called
at the house frequently. But she had never dreamed that
anyone thought he had come esj>ecially to see her. But in
spite of the fact that she had not had him in mind, her descrip-
tion of the older man fitted him nicely. Perry seemed to have
forgotten that he was the real man of the story. He evidently
understood that he had been put in merely because he was
an old friend and wouldn't misconstrue her meaning. But
the other man, a man she had knowTi only so short a time,
that was very different, surely he must have made a most
favorable impression.

Marion laughed hysterically, she was perilously near tears.

"Why, Perry! I didn't think of him once, truly. The older
man isn't anyone, the only real ones are you and I — -" She
said this impetuously and then stopf>ed shortly, she must not
say such things as that, "and anyway it was only pretending"
she went on, "perhaps I shouldn't have written it, I didn't
think. Will you forgive me?"

The man rose. There was a peculiar wearinesf about the
movement that Marion had never noticed before. His face
was white and for a moment there was a curious expression
that was absolutely new, but he smiled the same old friendly
smile.

"There is nothing to forgive, little girl, and I shouldn't have
spoken as I did, I have no right to pry into your secrets, even
though I have always been your old Perry friend. But I want
to thank you for letting me be the right man for even just
that little while, it was mighty sweet and I shall never forget
it — "

Suddenly he caught her hands and drew her close to him.

"Oh, little Marion girl, I can't bear to think that there is
any other man. I know you don't think of me that way, but
I guess the story has gone to my head. I'm not as slow or
blind as you have me in the story. I've never once forgotten
what I would give the world to possess. I've been loving you
always. I was going to suggest that you fall in love vrith me
that night at the party, when you sent me away, and smce
then I have not dared come back to the subject. I realized
then that I had no more claim on your friendship than the
other fellows. I've been afraid to say a word for fear it might
spoil it all, but I've got to say it now, no matter what happens.
Do you think "

He got no farther.

Marion was sobbing in his arms. She knew it was a happy
cry, the same as the one when she had found out herself, so
long ago, where her heart belonged, but he had no way of
knowing it, so one hand crept up against his cheek, confid-
ingly, lovingly.

"Why, Perry, I didn't pretend myself in that story," she
whispered, "that has been real for oh! so long. I just pre-
tended you, because I love you! "

As he stooped to kiss the lips so near his own he said some-
what unsteadily,

"And how long is this story going to last?"
Together they repeated the promise.
"Forever and ever. Amen ! "

Page twelve

Music

Tke Western Comrade

Why Not Ragtime?

By Professor A. G. Wahlberg

HERE is a growing tendency among people to ignore
ithe higher music, and cHng almost exclusively to
the lower forms well typified by what is commonly
termed "ragtime". Some otherwise intelligent per-
sons have even gone so far as to assert that ragtime is superior
to what is known as classical music. A friend once remarked
that the merits of music were not to be judged by the difficulty
with which one must render it or the number of harmony
combinations which it possessed, but by its power to move
and incite to action its hearers. He further argued that at a
Fourth of July picnic, a political convention, or in an army
marching to war, a few lively selections of ragtime would do
more toward filling men with enthusiasm than the composi-
tions of all the Wagners and Verdis lumped together.

As this view seems to be prevalent universally, I will
endeavor to shed some much-needed light on the subject.

First, I will give the reader a few definitions that he may
understand clearly any terms or words that may subsequently
be used:

Music — The art and science of expressing emotions

through the medium of tones so arranged rythmically and

melodically, as to produce a satisfactory effect upon the ear.
Classical — A term applied to music of sufficient merit to

bear repetition — standing the test of time, because of purity

in form and structure. Not necessarily difficult.

Measure — Two or more regularly recurring pulsations,

represented by a space between two bars.

Rhythm — The division of musical ideas or sentences into

regular portions. The swing of a selection.

Syncopation — ^The unequal division of time or notes or

tones; an artificial accent which is usually followed by the

natural rhythm; or, music having measures with displaced

accents — five or six different kinds of forms. Ragtime is

the lowest formi of syncopation.

Ragtime — The cheapest form of syncopated music, be-
cause of its appeal to physical action of little value.

Good 'music is not necessarily complex in its harmony
arrangements. Some of our choicest music is exceedingly
simple and easy to render. The Welsh melody will live for-
ever. Auld Lang Syne, America, Onward Christian Soldiers,
Sweet and Low, with scores of folk-songs and hymns, will be
sung many generations later than the best ragtime selection
yet to be written.

A great many of our songs and hymns are but excerpts from
the works of the masters of tone.

The difference between the good and the bad in music is
the difference between an audience (order) and a mob (dis-
order). It is not difficult to incite a mob. A mob is easily
moved. Ragtime will do it.

As I was once much interested in politics, I will concede
that my friend was right in stating that ragtime is best for
political conventions. Representatives from all classes are
there, especially the "mob", the saloon gang, the "ward-
heelers," "job-hunters." the "mentally and morally ragged."
Give them rags! I have never heard of anybody coming
away from a political convention any more refined than before
going in

The "good book" tells us that we are prone to wander. We
are likely to do this on sprees and holidays. It is when we are
a little naughty or when we start to wander that some of us
like "rags".

As ragtime is less than twenty-five years old, it is certain

that the Army of the Republic did not use it in the Civil War.
It played and sung "When Johnny Comes Marching Home
Again," "Just Before the Battle," "Battle Hymn of the Repub-
lic," "Marching Through Georgia," and a number of other
melodies written by George W. Root. These with the national
airs were used, and none of them constitutes ragtime. In the
Spanish-American War, the bands did play "There'll Be a Hot
Time" while capturing a city. This was probably justifiable
under the circumstances because of the sentiment and the
consequent fulfillment.

People ignorant in the structure of music rhythmically and
melodically are likely to confound popular and other fleeting
music with ragtime. "I Love You, California" cannot be class-
ed as ragtime as there are but four syncopated measures in
it. It is a popular song with a poor text and cheap musical
structure. Advertisement and the sentiment have kept it alive.
One seldom hears it now. "Tipperary" is not ragtime, for
there is not a single syncopated measure in it. It was written
by Americans and was a failure as a popular song until made
famous by British bands who played it in the European war.

The national airs and melodies are the ones which inspire
on the battlefield, where men are dying — not ragtime.

Ragtime wsls introduced in, by and through, the "Minstrel
Show" where in song and dance, the singers and dancers
would, so to speak, "take off" the negro — the emotional darky
— with gestures and movements far more rude and uncouth
than cultured and refined. Out of these experiences came
"ragging" and nearly all low dances of the modern dance hall.
The difference between the good and the bad in music is also
the difference between aesthetic and "rag" dancing.

Music is built upon rhythm. Rhythm came out of the
dance. G. Stanley Hall has said that one reason for the fact
that ragtime is holding the attention of the musically untrained
is due to the fact that the most successful ragtime numbers
have short motives or phrases. The elemental mind cannot
grasp much. Another has said that the difference between
the good and the bad in music is identical vkith the difference
between some of our modern writers and Shakespeare.

An argument against ragtime is its short life, for we find
that even its proponents tire of it. A ragtime selection seldom
lasts more than a single season.

In conclusion, ragtime appeals to the limbs or the animal
side of human nature. In it, there is no appeal to the heart
or the intellect. Good music requires an intellect for further
understanding; consequently all without culture or an intel-
lectual understanding of music are not touched by good music.
The music which will stand an intellectual analysis, which
appeals to the highest motives v^nthin us, which touches the
heart as well as the head — that which is spiritual — vidll remain.

A poor man is ever at a disadvantage in matters of public
concern. When he rises to speak, or writes a letter to his
superiors, they ask: "Who is this fellow that offers advice?"
And when it is known that he is without coin they spit their
hands at him, and use his letters in the cook's fires. But if
it be a man of wealth who would speak or write or denounce,
even though he have the brain of a yearling dromedary, or a
spine as crooked and unseemly, the whole city listens to his
words and declares them wdse. — Li Hung Chang.
o

A good mjan never makes a good soldier. The soldier is
nothing but a legalized murderer. — Napoleon Bonaparte.

The Western Comrade

Education

Page thirteen

Montessori — What It Achieves

THE announcement made recently by the San Diego
Montessori Association that Dr. Maria Montessori,
founder of the Montessori system of education, would
conduct a summer class for teachers at San Diego is
one of the most notable ever made in educational circles.
This will be the last appearance of Dr. Montessori in the
United States for several years, as large classes await her in-
struction in many countries of Europe.

The elementary courses, as well as the courses in sub-
primary work wnll be included in the summer course. The
former deals with the teaching of children from the sixth year
until they are ready for high school instruction. The institu-
tion of several demonstration schools to exemplify the prac-
ticability of the Montessori method is a feature of the course
offered.

Dr. Maria Montessori is perhaps the most inspiring figure
in the educational world. An understanding of her work and
methods is essential not only to teachers and students and
parents, but to all who profess to be versed in the social
sciences. Originally appearing as the apostle of a system of
education purporting to sharpen and develop early the facul-
ties of the child, she now leads a great movement having for
its goal race improvement — individual, biological and social.
Hers is no freakish, fanatical philosophy; its value is perman-
ent and indisputable, because all its theories have stood the
test of science and reason, and its methods proved successful.

Dr. Montessori is a physician, a scientist and a pioneer in
the field of education. She began her phenomenal career in
the educational world in Rome by conducting experiments
with mentally deficient children. Observing that her methods
restored imbecilic children to sanity, she proceeded upon the
hypothesis that an elaboration of the same system could be
used successfully with normal children. Experiment proved
her assumption to be correct.

The gist of the Montessori method is the careful watching
of children so as to assist in the spontaneous development of
capabilities or special faculties which they may possess. Dr.
Montessori believes that the old conception of discipline con-
fuses inaction with demeanor. In her method, liberty is al-
lowed the child, and the child is encouraged in using his lib-
erty profitably through the study of interesting, absorbing
things. Learning is done by DOING and DISCOVERING.
The efficacy of SUGGESTION rather than a series of nagging
orders has been proved. The ideal of Dr. Montessori is to de-
velop the WHOLE child — ALL his faculties and proclivities.
Careful attention is given to bodily strength, knowledge of the
practical necessities of life, keenness of all the senses, accurate
muscular control, intellectual education and moral and spirit-
ual grovrth. It is a remarkable fact that notwithstanding the
broad field here covered in the instruction of the child, the
children learn the rudiments of reading, writing and computa-
tion much earlier than children trained with the old method.

Prudence Stokes Brown, founder of the Montessori school
in Llano, and who took special courses under the instruction
of Dr. Montessori, is one of the most experienced and suc-
cessful teachers of the new method. She has the following to
say concerning the Montessori system:

"Instead of the old idea that children are instinctively bad
and disorderly. Dr. Montessori has proved that the normal
child is instinctively good and loves order, beauty and work.
To that end, she has established the children's houses, labora-
tories where children are left free in their work. All disorder

is eliminated, but that activity which is good is left, the most
complete liberty of manifestation. Adults often stigmatize
as evil in the small child that which annoys them, when he
is only seeking self-expression. He rebels, and is called
'naughty,' but give him the means of self-expression, and re-
bellion is noticeably absent."

The Montessori school which Mrs. Brown now teaches is
a fascinating study in child psychology. Here the infant mind
is seen to unfold, expand and flower with startling rapidity.

A mother visiting the school, ^noticing a child carrying a
tall, pink pyramid of blocks around and around the veranda,
asked, "Isn't that a waste of time?" "By no means," re-
turned Mrs. Brown, "Note the poise he has — ^note the sense
of balance, his steadiness." Mrs. Brown continued, "The poise
Louis has is due to the training in carrying that pyramid and
walking on a line to 'slow music, carrying a glass of colored
water. Children love beauty, and so we appeal to this taste
by providing attractive surroundings." The visitor noted that
the whole porch ' where the children studied was indeed
picturesque vrith the many bits of statuary and ornaments
artistically placed.

William, Helen and Majorie were seated blindfolded at a
table putting various geometrical insets into spaces provided
for them. The visitor tried to show Marjorie where to place
one. The child said, "Please don't show me, I want to do it
myself," and William contributed, "That wouldn't be fair."

When asked how reading and writing were taught, Mrs.
Brown led the visitor to a room adjoining the porch in which
was a low blackboard. Here was Marian Rode, aged four,
blindfolded, feeling some large sandpaper letters on white
cardboard. She would raise the blindfold and carefully make
the letter on the board as nearly like the sandpaper letter as
possible. Marian was learning and at the same time enjoying
herself.

The visitor asked a mother who came to get her two children
whether the school helped in the disciplining of the children
at home. "Indeed it does," replied the mother. "Mary Louise
is much more adaptable and considerate than she used to be
and helps in serving and washing the dishes. And Elizabeth,
who is only 'two years and three months old, dresses and
undresses herself even to buttoning and unbuttoning her shoes.
In fact, the home is where this training shows, and I try to
carry out the Montessori ideas in the children's lives."

It is hoped that as many teachers as possible will take the
course offered in San Diego by Dr. Montessori. A large num-
ber have' already arranged to attend the summer school, letters
of inquiry having been received'from all over the state of Cali-
ifornia. It is to be regretted that mothers cannot secure this
instruction direct from Dr. Montessori at this time, but in the
near future competent instructors will be available for all those
desiring to learn the method.

Your republic will be as fearfully plundered and laid waste
by the barbarians in the twentieth century as the Roman
empire was in the fifth, with this difference, that the Huns and
Vandals who ravaged the Roman empire came from without,
and that your Huns and Vandals will have been engendered
within your own country and by your own institutions. —
Macaulay.

He that would be no slave must have no slave. — Lincoln.

Page fourleen

The We stern Cc

What Shall We Do to Be Saved ? ^y ^o^-pe.u.

T is my humble opinion that this question was origin-

Ially asked in an economic and not theological sense.
It was to the early Christian a question of vital, pres-
ent and not posthumous importance. What shall we
do to be saved? Surely it was not the fear of hell hereafter
that inspired the question. No, not the fear, but the realization
of hell on earth in the form of Roman aggression upon their
ancient liberties troubled them. It was the burden of militar-
ism that ate like a canker into their economic substance and
their social life, that threatened to reduce them to an ever
lower peonage, that caused the cry: "What shall we do?" Not
"What shall we talk?" Not "What shall we read?" But
straight from the shoulder "What shall we do?" "What is to
be accomplished?" Thus they banded themselves together
and we are told that there were none amongst them that
wanted, for they had all things in common.

Now I am not writing this as a sermon on the virtues of
the ancient Christians. I am rather writing it in an attempt
to awaken the slumbering social consciousness to action in a
physical as well ais an intellectual sense. I am a convert to the
propaganda of the deed. Not petit larceny deeds of individual
sabotage but broad, constructive deeds that lead to fuller and
freer and nobler life. It is deeds, not creeds we need. It is
social action in our own mill amongst the purple ranges of
the Sierra Madres. To cut our own trees for our own dwell-
ings that sleep in the shimmering sunlight at the edge of the
valley. To awaken a consciousness that will cause earth to
flower our collective soil with our collectively owned machine,
to reap the grain with collective hand and collectively enjoy
the products of mountain, plain and stream, made useful to
the need of man by the social labor of class-conscious work.
That is the action that counts in rearing the great temple of
life from its foundation stone of bread to its turrets and min-
arets of joy, laughter and song. Things done are things won.
Generally speaking we are as lost now as were the Romans
of the first century. Augustus Rockefeller, Caligula Morgan,
Crassus Carnegie and Caesar Wilson today encroach upon
our liberties, today are preparing armies for the destruction
of the Jerusalem of our boast, — Free Democracy. Interest,
rent and profit, taxes, special assessment, are now driving the
vndow from her cot ond throwing orphans on the street; are
causing the small farmer to vanish from his estate into the
peonage of renting. Concentrated capital is driving the little
shop-keeper from his bench, the little store-keeper from the
mart. On goes the merry march of organized power, of organ-
ized might, strictly legal, — capitalism is long on legality — it
always makes a law before it commits a crime, to sanctify
that particular crime. Never do anything unlawful; be sure
you have the law on your side; that costs money and to gel
money you must be organized either to retain your product
or to skin Henry; never be lawless; legalize your acts before
you commit them. I attended a conference of doctors, mem-
bers of the Medical Association, organized for the benefit of
the sick — Rats! They openly boasted of the laws they had
secured for the safety of the people, — Huh? Oh, no; to keep
out competing schools; to control the great art of dopeology
in the hands of the association. They read a paper on public
health, but if public health were well taken care of how would
the learned doctor pay office rent? The medical associations
have thus made laws or had laws made to protect their in-
terests and their interest is the disease and not the health of
the community. I visited a convention of undertakers, — ex-

tremely ignorant men. Mentally almost an equivalent of the
people they deal with, and all I could hear was bluster and
brag about the laws they had passed or caused to pass, that
legalized the fines they put on death. They didn't call it
vandalage, piracy, robbery — no, no — these are ugly words.
They offend the taste of the living who will some day be dead.
They call it business when they work to legalize processes by
which they make it financially impossible for Us to die decently.
They do this through force of organization. And so we find it
everywhere. Those who are organized drive those who are
unorganized from the field through their collective power.
Those who are organized, not to talk but to get or keep, are
happy, well-fed, well-clothed, highly respected, well-washed
and unjailed. They are saved now. They have their salvation
here. Because you are unorganized to get, to make and to
keep, you are underfed, misclothed, unhoused, unwashed, and
unrespected, frequently jailed. You are so helpless that you
cannot do anything but work for them who are organized to
take the product of your toil. Hence, like ancient Christen-
dom, you cry out, but not "What shall we do?" Your refrain
is "What shall we believe to be saved?" "What shall we
read?" "What shall we vote?" And "How moral should we
be?" But whenever anybody says, "Let us do," then re-
echoes the refrain from the unorganized "It can't be done."

Many of our so-called scientific Socialists seem to be still
looking for a mystical deliverance, hoping to be taken into
the co-operative commonwealth in white linen bandages, with-
out work of any member of the body except the jaw. The
word has become flesh. The man who denies the power of
co-operation in the face of co-operative success in many parts
of the world is simply an economic spook-artist who tries to
make himself believe that he can orate himself out of hell.
Then he makes fun of the priest who tries to mumble a soul
out of Purgatory which, according to tradition, is only half
as far down. Some consistency! We are told that only
material things count. Economic determinism, materialist con-
ception of history, material interest are continually talked
about but when we suggest tha;t we go to the land and do
material things, "You ain't orthodox." They talk of Direct
Action, but when you advise action — horrors! it always
failed! Thus many of our Socialists, including the Executive
Committees of some large states, give to our materialistic phil-
osophy a very theological interpretation. It is surely not
economic, for the science of economics deals with the manage-
ment of industrial affairs, and in that our theorizers are "heap
much" deficient.

The theologian says: "Believe my creed and you shall be
saved." The mere political propagandist says: "Vote the
ticket and doughnuts will fall like April showers" and then
they have the brass to abuse the sound sense of mankind
when they are laughed at.

In answer to the question: "What shall we do to be saved?"
the Co-operator makes this reply: "Organize with your com-
rades; pool your resources; operate you own industries; eat
and wear the products of your own toil; cease paying com-
mission for the privilege of existence; organize for deeds and
let creeds take care of themselves."

At Llano we are doing the social deeds; are supplying the
social needs; are forgetting the soul-sickening creeds; are
being saved from the worries and annoyances incident to
working-class life; and above that, we vote the ticket of our
class; we labor for the greater political democracy.

The Western Comrade

Page fifteen

Fires of Love

By Ethel Winger

TWILIGHT EMBERS.
HAT a riotous profusion of thoughts comes to you
while watching a fire! In the orange flames, nov/
flickering, now leaping, now dying to a red glow, you
can see faces and friends. Memories of the long ago
come back in that magic light; visions of the mysterious fut-
ure shape themselves into the little golden tongues of twisting
brightness; and into your half-consciousness comes creeping
all the dim, intangible fears and hopes which slowly form into
hazy reveries as you sit enchanted. And love — love, too,
appears before you, and for a while you dream.

THE HOUSEHOLD HEARTH.

You think of those with you, sitting around the fire-place,
and a warm gratitude steels over you, remembering the affec-
tions of mother and father and sister and brother. How con-
stant is the love among members of your family! — so un-
changeable that at times you almost forget that it is there,
ready to come to the foreground when loyalty and help are
needed. It is just a comfortable, satisfying love that envelopes
you in its steady warmth — always ready when called upon,
always unobtrusive when other matters are given precedence.

How well it is typified by the fire on the household hearth!
— which furnishes the heat for the living-room, and gives a
cheerful warmth without advertismg the source. Yet, if you
wish, it is there for closer communion, always silently inviting
you to bask in its radiance. What a sense of security and
peace there is in the fire of the home! How joyfully you
come back to it again after every absence! Yet it does not
crowd out the pleasure in some of the other fires you like — ■
and recalling this, to these others your thoughts begin to drift.

THE CAMP FIRE.

What a grateful memory there is of the fires built as you
spent the evening in the Out-of-Doors! Tired and cold from
the long day's journey, with what a welcome the crackling
flames received you! They flavored the meals you cooked
vidth savory smoke; and after you had refreshed your body
with food and warmth, they afforded your mind food for
thought and stimulated sweet recollections of other days.
After banking the coals with wood for the night, you slept,
basking in the glow. In the morning you awoke, revived mind
and body, and broke camp, eager to be off, yet looking regret-
fully at the dying embers. The fire had fulfilled its mission,
and, having taken of its cheer, needing it no more, you left
it forever.

So with some of the friends you met in the hustle of life's
activities. You greet them for a time, and appreciate sincerely
their fnenship. But when new places and new conditions call,
anxious to find these new experiences, you hasten away. It
is not without a feeling of sadness that you leave those who
had brightened your path as you passed. Yet you must bid
farewell, knowing that the pain of parting will gradually
change into a happy memory.

THE FOREST FIRE.
You have seen other great fires out of doors, infinitely
larger than the camp-fire. On (some glorious day of Indian
summer, you became aware of an increasing haziness along
the timbered hills, and later you scented the delicate aroma
of wood-smoke. The distant atmosphere became grayer and
bluer, and then, above the hills, you could see the gray almost
imperceptibly blending with the sky. Thicker and whiter grew

the smoke, and as you approached, the pines were lost in its
clouds. Suddenly, the fire leaped out, and instantly before
you were miles of burning forest. The waves of flames
mounted to a mighty conflagration. The fire tore through the
trees. It mowed down everything in its path. It mocked with
crashing hisses all attempts to quench it. The roar resounded
and reverberated through the canyons. For days the fire
raged — until the fuel failed. For a long time the smoke
lingered, and when the last coals died, nothing was left but
barrenness and desolation. Those hillsides would always bear
marks of the conflagration, but some day, in places where the
decaying logs and impenetrable underbrush had been cleared
away, more trees will be planted, and once again the green
pines will lift their tops to the stars.

Such a fire is the love of lovers. Coming gradually, it is
scarcely noticed before it gets a permanent stronghold, when it

Many such spots as this are within easy reach of Llano residents

carries all in its path. It is irresistible. And then, if it is
denied the food on which it is fed, it will die out, leaving
only rum m its place. But if the splendid loyalties and affec-
tions were destroyed, so were the impenetrable prejudices, the
decaying monotonies. And some day, on the old ruin, may
be planted seeds where new ideals, endeavors and new love
may grow unhindered.

THE FIRES OF THE INFINITE.

How differently magnificent are the fires of the sky!

The gentle evening star that comes with the twilight, so
steady in its sublimity, so sweet in its beauty, fills us with
reverence as we gaze. Its quiet radiance, broken by a faint,
faint twinkle of rosy color, brings us peace, and dispels the
weariness, the disappointment or the pain of the day.
(Continued on Page 22)

Page sixteen

The Western Comrade

Was Schmidt Guilty?

[This is the fourth installment of Comrade Harriman's address in the trial
of the Los Angeles Times dynamiting cases.]

ORTIE McMANIGAL met Hockin at Muncie, and there
they arranged to, and did, purchase and store the first
bit of dynamite that the Iron Workers' Union ever

purchased or owned. It was stored in a music box

in a cottage at Muncie, Indiana, where McManigai went for
his suppHes. FeeHng that the place was not sufficiently con-
cealed, he suggested that his supplies should be stored in a
more isolated quarter. He accordingly moved the dynamite
from Muncie to an old isolated cooper shop at Rochester,
Pennsylvania. Feeling now that all was ready, the execution
of the campaign of destruction began.

However far away, whether in Boston, New York, Peoria,
Salt Lake or wheresoever, the dynamite necessary for the work
was taken from the cooper shop at Rochester. Each time, he
said, he returned to the cooper shop and went his way with
his deadly missile.

Neither he, nor anyone else, ever got any dynamite or nitro-
glycerine at any place, at or near any point, where a "job"
was done, nor did they get any nitro-glycerine or dynamite
except from the cache at Rochester.

This also is consistent voth the secret methods which Mc-
Manigai, on cross-examination, said they always and every-
where employed. '

Not only did McManigai get the nitro-glycerine that he used
from the cooper shop, but he said that J. B. McNamara also
got all he used from the same cache.

It will be remembered that J. J. McNamara and McManigai
found faulth with Hockin for appropriating some of the cash
that should have been paid to McManigai for the jobs that he
claims to have done. This altercation resulted in removing
Hockin from the field. Naturally Hockin became angry and a
short time thereafter the cache of dynamite at the cooper shop
was discovered. Suspicion, of course, was cast upon Hockin
by those familiar with the plot, but at that time no evidence
was at hand.

Another quantity of nitro-glycerine was purchased and
deposited by McManigai in a cinder-pile near Pittsburg. It
was from this cache, he testified, that he took the missile with
which he destroyed the building at Peoria, Illinois.

Some time after the job at Peoria was done, McManigai
testified that he was riding with J. J. McNamara from Indian-
apolis to Ohio, when McNamara discovered the mark Peoria
on McManigal's shoes. "What do you mean by leaving that
mark on your shoes? Take it off at once. They could trace
you by that back to Peoria." Again we see with what secrecy
they governed themselves.

Shortly after the cache was placed in the cinder-pile, Mc-
Manigai said he was followed across the bridge and down to
the place where the cache was placed. He claimed to have
reported this fact to J. J. McNamara, and that he immediately
ordered all the nitro-glycerine to be brought from the cinder-
pile to his vault in Indianapolis, and McManigai claims to have
done the transportation. The cache was placed there because
McManigai said they thought it would be the last place where
any one would think of looking for it.

Again Hockin was suspected of treachery but no evidence
was then in hand to support the suspicion. Later, however,
it appeared that Hockin had, as they suspected, turned traitor
and delivered them into the hands of the enemy.

It must be remembered that McManigai testified that he

never met but two men who were not members of the Execu-
tive Board !of the Iron Workers. One of these men was Smith
of Peoria, Illinois. True, he testified that he met Webb of
New York, but you will remember that Webb is a member of
the Executive Board.

McManigal's testimony in regard to Young of Massachusetts
is not true. It is inconsisitent with the methods employed, in-
consistent with the secrecy that the success of the enterprise
demanded, and which was being stricdy observed. McManigai
said he went to see Young, that Young took him to the opera
house, then being built by non-union labor, and told him where
he wanted the [dynamite placed. That Young then departed,
and that he, McManigai, went for his infernal machine. That
two watchmen paced to and fro in front of the opera house,
meeting midway, .then turning their backs each towards the
other, they walked in opposite directions. That while their
backs were turned toward each other, he slipped in between
them, placed a shot under the stairs, and slipped out again and
went on his way.

The fact is that J. J. McNamara, by means of correspon-
dence always learned what buildings were in trouble and
where they were located. McManigai received from him and
Hockin all instructions. This was done in order that Mc-
Manigai should not meet anyone, union or otherwise, in any
city where he went. As a matter of fact, no one in any city
knew who was guilty of the job, and not a footprint or trace
was left behind. If he saw Young at all it was as a mere
stranger who inquired for a certain opera house. Young
might have told ithis stranger whiere it was located, and if
McManigai paid his carfare, possibly he went with him to the
place, without ever suspecting the man to whom he was ren-
dering his services. Then they parted and McManigai, still
under cover and free from suspicion, skulked back to the
station and got his ten quarts of nitro-glycerine, a fearful
engine of destruction. This time he testified that he left it in
the depot with the parcel department. Sometimes he checked
it with the hotel clerk. This tender-hearted father and 38-
caliber winged angel, said he was sufficiendy thoughtful to tell
them not to drop it, that they might break something. It
was thoughtful of him indeed. I can see him now with h!s
iron wings ! folded, going afoot through the narrow streets of
Boston, with his infernal machine in hand, to do his work of
destruction, while Young lay peacefully slumbering without a
thought of suspicion in his' heart, only to wake on the following
morning to be suspected with the rest of the union men of a
crime of which they knew absolutely nothing.

This is the only method by which they could have carried
out their secret schemes for three successive years. The same
state of facts applies to Smith of Peoria. McManigai did
not dare tell Young or Smith or anyone else in any place, what
his mission was. The secret could never have been kept by
such childish methods. No one knew nor could have known
what was being done but a part of the Board and McManigai
and J. B. McNamara. The proof of this is found in the testi-
mony of the expert accountant (Mr. Cook) who told you who
received and disbursed a certain fund which amounted to
about eighteen thousand dollars. The accountant told you
that the money was paid to Hockin, McNamara, Ryan and
Webb, all members of the Executive Board; that Clancy re-
ceived sixty-eight dollars and fifty cents all told, and that
Butler, also a member, received only fifty dollars. It is al-
together improbable that Clancy and Butler knew anything
•whatever of the campaign.

The Western Comradf

Page seventeen

It is true that Clancy called for Hockin to come to the coast.
Hockin had been in the field organizing, and Clancy thought
he was the most desirable man. But Hockin did not come.
He sent Mr. Berry of St. Louis. The man who was acting
in secret in the field was also sent without the knowledge of
Clancy.

Ryan, Hockin, J. J. McNamaraand Webb — these four with
McManigal and J. B. McNamara in the field doing the work,
knew and kept the secret. If you will only look the facts in
the face you will see that it could not have been otherwise.
Place yourselves in the same position, conducting the same
kind of a fight with the same methods. Would you have per-
mitted anyone, however near to you, to have known what you
were doing, excepting those who were absolutely necessary
in order to successfully carry on the undertaking? I submit
that you would not, and I submit that they did not. And the
testimony of McManigal to the contrary, concerning Young
and Smith was perjured for the purpose of lending color to
the theory of the prosecution, namely, that the conspiracy was
nation-wnde.

We are not justifying the methods employed. In my judg-
ment it was an insane policy.

But they were driven into a corner. McManigal suggested
the plot. It seemed to them that it would work. They kept
it a secret among themselves. Secrecy was necessary. Had
such a policy been known to the organization it would have
created greater consternation than defeat. The men in the
various cities never knew it and never could have known it.
The movement would not stand for it, and did not stand for
it, and neither the organizers of the locals in the various cities
knew it or would stand for it. When the McNamaras pleaded
guilty the defense funds that were pouring in from all over
the country stopped instantly, and the defense, both in In-
dianapolis and here, has been a poverty defense ever since.
The forty men who were convicted in the East had practically
no funds with which to fight. You have heard the worst of all
the testimony that was offered against them. I submit that
there is not sufficient evidence to convict so many men. The
evidence would probably cover those whom I have named but
it would not go beyond.

The theory of the prosecution is that the campaign was
nation-wide, and that practically all the leaders of the labor
movement are involved. It is upon this theory that they would
have us believe that the lockout in Los Angeles in 1910 was a
part of that plot and scheme. In order to confound the
evidence and to confuse your minds, they first offered evi-
dence of what happened in the East and then of what
happened in the West, thus constantly oscillating between the
East and West like a shuttlecock, as though that would con-
nect the two struggles. Of course, there was a struggle in the

East. Everyone admits that. There was also a struggle in
Los Angeles in 1910, but they were as distinct and separate
from each other as the business affairs of the city of Los
Angeles are separate from the business affairs of the city of
Indianapolis.

The only threads by which they have endeavored to tie
these hvo struggles together are the trip of J. B. McNamara
to the coast and a letter and check of a thousand dollars sent
to 0. A. Tveitmoe.

I shall take up first the matter of J. B. Bryce, and second
the check that was sent to Mr. Tveitmoe.

McManigal testified that he and J. B. McNamara were as-
signed to do some work together in Cleveland, Ohio. That
J. B. McNamara was so secretive that he refused after the
first trip to go again with anyone. That when he left Ind-
ianapolis for the coast he had two suit cases. That J. B.
McNamara told him that one had clocks and batteries, but that
he would not say what the other contained. That it was
heavy. That he (McManigal) had two valises full of nitro-
glycerine, one being for a job at Omaha, Nebraska, and the
dther for a job in Wisconsin. That they went on the train
from Indianapolis to Chicago together, but that J. B. Mc-
Namara would not talk. This is further evidence of the
secret methods employed. If they would not talk to each
other regarding their enterprise is it reasonable to believe that
J. B. McNamara would talk to strangers on the Pacific coast?
We are told by McManigal that J. B. McNamara came direct
to Los Angeles from Indianapolis, and the registers of hotels
have been produced in this court to support that statement. If
that is true, and if the Los Angeles Times was blown up with
dynamite, then the stuff that McManigal says J. B. McNamara
brought in his valise from Indianapolis, is the stuff with which
the work was done.

Later J. B. McNamara went to San Francisco. There is
not one particle of evidence that he met any union men there.
Everything tends to show that he observed his usual secretive-
ness. While he was there he stopped with a Mrs. Ingersoll.
.Somewhere he must stop and there he happened in. This
woman was a stranger to the union men of San Francisco.
Certainly if there had been any connection between the East-
ern struggle and the lockout in Los Angeles this man Bryce
would not have been housed with a stranger.

("Was Schmidt Guilty?" began in the May number and will run for
several months. Back numbers, ten cents a copy.]

A DAY of disaster for any nation will surely dawn when
■^^ its society is divided into two classes — the unemployed
rich and the unemployed poor — the former a handful and the
latter a host. — Daniel Webster.

Left, firing boiler at south industrial building; center, stone work for horse barn; right, grading Llano land for irrigating.

Page eighteen

■operation

The Western Comrade

Co-operation the World Over

Notes About the Chief Co-operatives Gleaned from Many Sources

California Associated Raisin Company

The California Associated Raisin Company is one of the most important
and powerful farmers* co-operative organizations in the world. Organized
in 1912, at which time the unfortmiate farmers were becoming desperate
because of the wretched marketing conditions prevailing, the company
now controls eighty-five per cent of the raisin production of the United
Slates; has a membership of over 3500 stockholders; has a working
capital and surplus of $1,500,000, and has a total acreage of raisins under
contract of 140,000 acres.

Although handicapped early in the history of the organization by the
blind, selfish desire of the growers to remain "on the outside" of the
organization in the hope of securing a higher price from private dealers,
the company prospered until today it is very firmly entrenched. Between
April K 1913 and April 1, 1917, it handled 318.000 tons of raisins and
received a gross sum for them of more than $38,000,000. During the
same period, after defraying expenses of handling, packing and selling, the
growers were paid more than $29,000,000. The result has been a perm-
anent and material increase in price to the grower, and a decided improve-
ment in quality of the product to the consumer.

The office of the California Associated Raisin Company is in Fresno,
California. — Wylie M. Giffen, President.

Starting the Co-operative Store

No co-operative store should begin business before it has organized its
market; in other words, its membership. No store should open its doors
until it knows how many customers it can depend on to buy from its
stock. Never count on passing trade. This means that the society must
first be organized and its first members chosen with extreme care.

Never start a co-operative society through a general public meeting.
That method brings in elements that will only disrupt when the first dif-
ficulties are met. But the members of a co-operative group should con-
stitute a society for the study of social problems, with especial reference
to co-operation.

The most effective group for organizing a co-operative society is one m
which the members have an intimate personal acquaintance with each other
and are bound by some other ties, such as membership in the same labor
union, community center, neighborhood guild, workmen's circle or other
organization which gives a sense of kinship and solidarity. It Is best
that the members should be neighbors rather than that they should live
widely separated. — The Co-operative League of America.

Nokomis Co-operative Society

(Nokomls, Illinois)
We are progressing nicely. Our report shows that we made a seven per
cent patronage dividend during the first quarter, and expect to show
a better report this second quarter which ends June 30. Our member-
ship is growing steadily and our sales for this quarter are about fifty
per cent larger than those of last quarter. Besides getting the profits
for ourselves, we are assured of best quality merchandise at an honest
price as far as retailing is concerned. Also our patrons get full weight and
measure. — From a letter by H. E. Gifford, Manager.

The Need for Co-operation

In the conduct of modern business there is much waste; there is also
great profit. Last year the value of products of this country amounted to
$8,000,000,000; $2,000,000,000 remained on the farms. When the
$6,000,000,000 of produce sold reached the consumer, he paid $13,000.-
000,000, That is, is costs $7 to market every $6 worth of produce. The
consumer is beginning to ask why some of this waste should not be
utilized for him and some of these profits be returned to him. Nobod)-
wants to help him; many in fact would find it to their advantage to hinder
him; laws seem to be of no avail; government is helpless. He, therefore,
must help himself, but to do this effectively he must work in unison with
his fellow consumers. Co-operation offers the only sure means. — New
England Co-operative Society.

American Society of Equity

One of the most useful agencies in America in spreading the gospel of
co-operation is the American Society of Equity at Wausau, Wisconsin.
The mission of the society is "to get the farmers together, teach them the
lessons of co-operation, organize them and show ihem how, by co-operative
selling and by co-operative large-scale buying, they can eliminate un-

necessary middlemen, reduce the cost of getting their products into the
hands of the consumers, and thus receive a much larger per cenlage of
the price paid for ihem.

European Co-operation

The transformation in the rural life of more than one European com-
munity through co-operation has amounted to little less than a revolution.
Higher standards of agricultural products and production have been set
up and maintained, better methods of farming have been inculcated and
enforced, and the whole social, moral and civic life of the people has
been raised to a higher level. From the viewpoint of material gain, the
chief benefits of agricultural co-operation have been the elimination of
unnecessary middlemen, and the economies of buying in large quantities,
and selling In the best markets, and employing the most efficient implements.
— Rev. Father A. Ryan.

German Co-operatives

The statistics of the German agricultural co-operative societies show
that in 1915 there were 97 central co-operative societies, 2,833 co-oper-
ative societies for collective sale and purchase, 17,781 co-operative savings
and loan banks, 3,588 co-operative dairy societies, 4,353 co-operative
societies having other objects ; a total of 28,652 agricultural co-operative
societies, 164 of them founded in 1915, having a membership of 2,500,000.
— Montana Equity News.

The American consumer has no good grounds for complaint against the
farmer, because of the prices he pays for farm products. The consumer
can protect himself by buying directly from the farmer as the English
consumer, through the aid of co-operative associations, is successfully
doing. — James Wilson, formerly Secretary of Agriculture.

Wind versus Work

If trade unionists and labor men generally had spent half the time
they have expended on resolutions during the past hundred years on
co-operative business problems, the Co-operative Commonwealth would
have been much nearer today. It is far better to build factories than
hold conferences for the mere purpose of protesting against the unfairness
of exploiters. These protests have been made for centuries. Unless we
make factories in the future instead of speeches, the protests will con-
tinue for centuries to come. — The Producer, England.

The workers of the world must learn to co-operate. If they do not
hang together, they will hang separately.

Rochdale System in America

The Rochdale system of consumers' co-operation so successfully in vogue
in England, may be used equally as successfully in America, provided an
effort IS made to adjust the system to peculiar business and financial
conditions in the United States. Many co-operators have failed in using
the Rochdale method in this country and have ever after contended that
its application here is impossible. It is an interesting fact that of all
the co-operative stores that have succeeded in America, the larger per
centage of them have adopted a modification of the Rochdale system.

Co

o p

eration Unifies

The most favorable omen for the success of the proposed Conference
for the settlement of the Irish problem lies in the history and experience
of the Irish co-operative movement. In the countries which have been
sharply divided along radical, political and religious lines, the one unify-
ing force has been the common interest of all groups in the co-operative
stores, co-operative diaries and co-operative credit societies. — Laurence
C. Staples, Co-operative League of America-

Co-operative Egg Marketing

In Canada approximately 105 egg circles are in active operation at the
present time. Of these forty are located in Ontario. The most success-
ful co-operative egg and poultry association in Canada is located in
Prince Edward Island, where some fifty-two or fifty-three associations
are amalgamated into one central association with central warehousing,
grading and selling facilities.

The National Agricultural Organization Society is an institution that
is helping farmers to co-operate. For information write to the Secretary,
340 Washington Building, Madison, Wisconsin.

Th e Western Cc

>de

nineteen

News and Views in Agriculture

Do These Things Now

TKin the vegetables that show signs of crowding. To do so requires
courage, but it will pay. The young beet tops make excellent greens.

At the first appearance of the striped beetle on melon and squash vines,
spray with Bordeaux mixture and Paris green, or dust with powdered
air-slaked lime.

Watch for curculio on plum and quince trees. This is a grayish beetle
about a quarter of an inch long. Jar the trees and catch the beetles on
sheets spread on the ground.

Do the cultivating and weeding early in the morning of a hot day. The
uprooted weeds will be scorched by the sun. Never let the soil become
caked or form a crust.

To produce extra large bunches of grapes pinch off the young shoots
so as to leave one or two eyes.

Plant successive crops of com, beans, peas, beets and lettuce.

Stop cutting aspargus soon and allow the shoots to grow. Keep weeds
down and the soil well stirred. An application of quick-acting fertilizer
on the aspargus bed will do much good.

As soon as the peas and beans are off pull out the vines and sow
cabbages, turnips or sweet corn.

Look out for the green worm on currant and gooseberry bushes. If
present spray with Paris green and water — an ounce to about six gallons.

— The Country Gentleman.

Light and Ventilation in the
Dairy Stable

The general rule to be followed in lighting a dairy stable is one square
foot of glass area for each unit of twenty square feet of floor space.
Another rule calls for four to six square feet of glass area for each cow.
For a shed fifteen by sixty feet, or 900 square feet, there would be neces-
sary forty-five square feet of glass area. By spacing windows containing
six square feet of glass area from center to center along the sixty-foot
wall, ample light would be provided. Window ventilation is quite satis-
factory when the sashes tilt in at the top, as a temporary proposition.
These same sashes will work into a modified type of the King system of
ventilation later, if desired. — F. W. Ilcotts.

Brood Sows

The practice of having brood sows produce two litters a year, as fol-
lowed in some of the hog-raising sections of the United States, should be
encouraged, except where short seasons and severe winer prevent. Sows
intended to farrow fall litters should be bred not later than the end
of June. Those that are in breeding condition after weaning their spring
litter should be breed the first time they come in heat. There are generally
a few sows in the herd that are thin and run down in condition after wean-
ing, and these should be fed a little heavier for a few weeks before the
breeding to insure a larger litter in the fall. The date of breeding should
be recorded so as to determine the date of farrow. The gestation period
of a sow is 112 to 113 days. The sows should be watched closely to see
if they come in heat after they are once bred, so they can be rebred. The
heat period is every 21 days. — United Stales Department of Agriculture.

The Windbreak as

Farm Asset

Windbreaks are, in more ways than one, a farm asset. They tend to
prevent the soil from drying out quickly and they protect grain and
orchards from mechanical injury by the wmd. A belt of trees by the farm
buildmgs protects them from extreme winter cold and summer heat, and
makes the farm a pleasanter place in which to live. The windbreak
may also be a source of wood supply for use on the farm and for sale.

— ^Farmers" Bulletin.

Garbage as Fertilizer

Mix the garbage v^ath about three times the quantity of soil and let
it remain for several months until it becomes well rotted. This will avoid
fermentation and souring. — B. C. Mamer, New York.

The Loss from Grasshoppers

In California alone grasshoppers have caused an annual destruction of
at least $ 1 ,000,000 to the cereal and forage crops, which are the main
crops necessary for the food supply; not mentioning the immense loss from
this pest to the fruit, vegetable and truck crops of this section of the
country. In some of the larger alfalfa fields, the annual loss constitutes
almost one-third of the normal production. In other sections this pest
is present year after year, causing a great aggregate loss, but hardly

abundant enough to arouse the individual farmer to an effecKve grass-
hopper campaign. It is this aggregate loss over hundreds and thousands
of farms that must be lessened, as well as the loss where the pest appears
in such great numbers as to destroy the entire crop. — State Commissioner
of Horticulture.

Small Fruits

The soil cannot be too rich for strawberries. Good berries will grow
on a soil that will raise good white potatoes. A good fertilizer is well-
rotted manure, with a little commercial potash and rock phosphate applied
with the manure a year before the plants are set out. llie only fruit that
rebels against late pruning is the grape, which shows protest in bleeding.
Raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries and currants can be pruned after
they are in full leaf, or even in bloom without hurt. — The Co-ooerators'
Herald.

Mushrooms

We sometimes hear the complaint that by neglecting to use the mush-
rooms that could be cultivated, Americans are wasting an important food.
A good mushroom, properly cooked, is a very luscious morsel and as
such is a welcome addition to the dietary. If you are absolutely sure

Building the Road up into the Mountains; it now extends for a dozen
miles and is a remarkably good mountain road.

that the variety that grows on your lawn or in the neighboring fields is of
the edible kind, by all means cook it and eat it; it will do you good.
But if you have the least doubt of its innocuousness, you had better leave
it alone; the risk is too great and the possible gain in nutriment is too
slight.

How is Your Alfalfa?

Has your new alfalfa seeding stopped growing? Is it spotted and
patchy? Is it turning yellow? Have you a thin stand? Let us find out
what is the matter.

1. Are you sure your soil is not sour? Does it need lime for alfalfa?
Did you test it with litmus paper to see if it needed lime before you
seeded?

2. Did you inoculate? Are there nodules on the roots?

3. Is your field reasonably fertile and well drained? Are there any
low wet spots? Alfalfa will not stand wet feet.

4. Do you have a hardpan subsoil six or eight inches below the surface?
Hardpan is impenetrable to young alfalfa roots.

5. Did you have a poor stand last fall? Too thick seeding of the nurse
crop and the use of late-ripening grain may cause poor stands.

6. Was your alfalfa cut or pastured late in the fall? Remember the
eight-inch rule: If alfalfa does not go into winter with eight inches of
growth it may suffer from winter kiUing. — The Country Gentleman.

Horse Rations

The ration for a horse of a pound of grain and a pound of hay per
hundredweight a day is a useful standard. The horse doing light work
may receive more hay and less grain, and the horse at severe labor should
receive approximately the above amount of hay and enough grain to
keep him in condition. — ^J. L. Edmunds, Florida.

Page twenty

Book Reviews

The Western Comrad<

Reviews of Recent Readable Books ^y p- ^''^^^^

"The American Year-Book"

Appleton's "The American Year Book: A Record of Events and Prog-
ress," is intended for the needs of writers and searchers of every kind.
It does not aim to be a rival of other annual publications, either foreign
or domestic. The Year Book "appeals first of all to students in all
fields who wish a record of progress, not only in their own, but in
other departments of human endeavor. It is intended, also, as a handbook
for busy men, editors, writers, and practical and business men who wish
to verify or confirm points that arise in their minds; and to serve as
a handy body of reference material settling questions of fact." Having
been familiar with the annual during most of the seven years of its
existence, I can say with fervor that this expectation has been more than
met, and that the 1916 events recorded in the 1917 edition make it the
best issue of them all.

The Year Book is edited by Francis G. Wickware with the co-operation
of a supervisory board representing the national learned societies. There
are 127 special contributors, specialists in each line. The war occupies
a large percentage of the discussion, and I have seen no other source of
information of the year 1916 so complete as this one. The same thing
for that matter may be said of any field of research or activity. The
papers are grouped under 32 departments, with thorough table of contents
and index. Socialism receives a fair treatment from the pen of Carl D.
TTiompson, dealing with both the American and foreign developments.

For a present and a permanent reference book, Appleton's has come to
mean in its field what the World Almanac means in its sphere. (New York:
D. Appleton & Co.)

"How to Avoid Indigestion"

Dr. Robertson Wallace, M.B., CM., is a practical physician with many
sane ideas, which he is not afraid to give to the "laity". In two little
books he has recently imparted some facts that are worth reading. One
is "How to Avoid Indigestion: Its Chief Causes and Curative Treatment."

This is rather an ambitious title for a brochure of 176 pages, but Dr.
Wallace wastes no energy in side issues. He tells of the organs at fault
the process of healthy digestion, everyday causes of indegestion, stomach
and intestinal indigestion, diet for dyspeptics, and food to combat special
symptoms. The book is designed for "the plain man, in plain English,"
what is of practical service in the daily routine of life.

"How to Avoid Nervous Disorders : A Complete Treatise Concerning
Their Nature, Prevention and Cure," was prepared "expressly for the
layman in all that pertains to the care of his nervous system in health,
and its treatment when out of order." The author desires that the readers
may be prompted to so train their nervous organization that it shall be
the servant rather than the master of their fate, "and at the same time
afford sufficient information to enable them to follow intelligently the
general as well as the special lines of treatment of the more common
functional nerve troubles of everyday life." — (The Brilton Publishing Co.)

"Mental Adjustments"

One recalls Emanuel Julius' "Democratizing the Nice Stuff" in studying
the pages of "Mental Adjustments," written by Frederick Lyman Wells,
of McLean Hospital, Waverley, Mass. It is the most significant contri-
bution to psychology of the past year, and written in a style simple enough
for the average student, and at the same time erudite enough for the
profound specialist. It is one of the series of "The Conduct of Mind,"
edited by Professor Joseph Jastrow of the University of Wisconsin. Dr.
Jastrow is the foremost American psychologist, and his seal on any book
is evidence that it is something more than ordinarily worth while. I am
going to quote from his analytical introduction to the book to give you
an idea of its scope.

"The science of happiness," writes Dr. Jastrow, "is the most intricate
of human pursuits. It is to this study that Dr. Wells makes a significant
contribution. As a pioneer, he blazes the trail; others will be guided by
his route, though the future highways may diverge from his triangulations.
Central in the composition stands that complex of forces imposed by nature
embodied in the function of sex, and from that focus radiating to all the
expressions of human energy, desire, will, conduct. To consider the mani-
festations of sex so insistently and unreservedly may seem to many unused
to this perspective an unseemly intrusion, or an unworthy degradation.
The libido plays v^nth the human will, mocks at its attempts to escape its
bonds, and through the exponent of science reveals the true significance
of the mind's expressions. , , .

The volume moves toward a definite position in regard to the control
and expression of vital trends. Such a position has a direct bearing upon
ethics and education and all the regulative pystems that distinguish be-

tween good and bad, between more and less desirable. For adjustment
implies value, indeed sets the standard of value. Dr. Wells attempts an
analysis of the source of such standards and an appraisal of their worth
and fitness for the life that we today must attain. Beginning with the
biological relations, he promptly introduces the mental factor, and presents
the mind and its products as an instrument of adjustment. The use and
waste of the mental trends is his theme. The substitution of thoughts for
realities takes us back to primitive man and the unschooled habits of his
mind, to magic and superstition; it takes us collaterally to the breakdown
of mind in the forms of insanity, in which the distinction of fact and fancy
fades.

"Difficulties and failures of adjustment furnish the basis for the more
elaborate analyses . . . The nature of intelligence and the modes of test-
ing it; the scope and significance of individual differences; the newer meth-
ods of attacking the higher judging processes in terms of which adjusttnent
proceeds ; these are included in the survey.

"Dr. Wells reflects his professional interests in the disqualifications and
liabilities of the abnormal mind; his training is equally adequate in the
study of experimental problems among the normal. The work should find
its place as an aid to the general reader, as a guide to the psychological
student, whatever his practical interests or professional purpose may be.
Ideas irregularly scattered through the technical literature are here brought
together, with much original interpretation, into a consistent whole." —
(D. Appleon & Co,)

"White Nights, and Other Russian Impressions"

"White Nights, and Other Russian Impressions" is a good picture of
Russia just prior to the Revolution, as pictured by Arthur Ruhl, one of
the best known American journalists. An example of the impressions that
is of especial interest is the following:

"Rodzikanko, the Duma president, like most of the deputies, is a
landowner — he has enormous estates down in the southern steppe country —
and on the hot summer afternoon when I was talking with him he was
thinking, as many of his colleagues were, of the crops and getting home.

" 'The land won't wait,' he boomed. Tf the crops aren't good, Russia
suffers. And the army suffers. We must go home soon.' And the political
earthquake was then only a few months away."

Nearly thirty full-page pictures from photographs accompany the vivid
descriptions of scenes and events in Russia. "The Road to Russia" is
an interesting introductory chapter that gives some sidelights on Norway
and Sweden. He describes the homecoming of a group of German soldiers
who had been exchanged from the allies' prison camps. They were spirit-
less wrecks, most of whom were nearly dead from tuberculosis, besides
having legs, arms and eyes missing. Among the features of Russian
war time life described are the events at the front, the Moscow Art theater,
a look at the Duma, Russia's war prisoners, a Russian cotton king, down
the Volga to Astrakhan, Volga refugees and Roumania's lesson on the
meaning of war.

The narrative is told in the easy style of the well-informed newspaper
correspondent, with pertinent observations on the meanings of what Mr.
Ruhl was seeing. Previously to this book, Mr. Ruhl has written
"Antwerp to Gallipoli," "Second Nights," and "The Other Americans." The
photographs are partucularly interesting and illuminating. — (Charles
Scribners' Sons).

"The Royal Outlaw"

I am sure humanity has made a big advance, and H. G. Wells' idea of
a finite God which had nothing to do with "creation" and all that bunk,
since reading Charles B. Hudson's "The Royal Outlaw," a novel of King
David during the period when he fled from the insane wrath of Saul and
lived as an outlaw and exile. It is written on the style of the American
historical novels so popular a few years ago, and still written by Emerson
Hough, There is nothing of the mystic awe and reverence in talking of
this fascinating poet-butcher amorous king of the Jews. His lawless
gathering of associates, their trips among the enemy countries, their hidings
in the caves and hills, the love affairs and the battles bring out all of
their qualities as human beings without Jehovah's whiskers getting mixed
into the frays.

The book is historically accurate, and a well-told novel. Romance and
adventure blend in a stirring tale, coming from the lips of Old Alian o* the
Wood, David's veteran man-at-arms. Alian was a robber, who abandoned
his profession to cast his lot with the exiled king and became one of his
chief counselors. Alian furnishes a good part of the humor, which relieves
the strain of many fights. (E. P. Dutton & Co.)

The Western Comrade

Poetry

Page twenty-one

To the Ideal ByPr. John Dequer

I love you in pain and in sorrow,

I love you in v^eakness and might,
I love you in evening and morrow,

I love you through darkness and light ;
For my love from the heart, like a fountain.

Flows in perpetual streams;
My love is as vast as the mountains.

For you, the source of my dreams.

For me, your eyes gleam with a fire
That fills all the heavens with song;

For your voice doth ambition inspire.

To build beauty from a strife-sick throng —

For those who are weary and laden.
For those who are seeking the rest.

Fulfillment of promise of Aiden
I find, when asleep on your breast.

And I build, and teach and grow stronger.

When I think of the soul I adore;
And I wish that the sun would shine longer.

And the darkness of night I deplore.
For my spirit soars high like a lark —

A lark whose heart-throbs are song;
When I see you smile from your pillow,

I feel that in weakness I'm strong.

As the clover the bee calls to labor.

As the spring calls the bird to its nest.
As atoms call to their neighbors.

As play calls the child to its rest:
Your life calls my spirit to motion.

Like a mighty, redeeming machine;
You're my prayer, my song, my devotion.

My Saint, my God and my dream.

The keystone to all of my arches.
As in either your heart or your face;
In the music of soul-stirring marches.

In the swirl and jam of life's race,
I hold you, the crown of my power.

The hope and the joy of the strife;
You're my shield, my sword and my tower-

The pulse and strength of my life.

I may win or lose in the striving,

I may fail and rise up again;
I may sink, and the billows, fast driving.

May strand me with heartache and pain :
But no matter what fate may befall me.

As long as your hand, from the shore,
Will beckon sweetly, and call me,

I will live for the soul I adore.

A Workingman's Soliloquy Byciinton Bancroft

I am the blind giant.

I am a part of the incomprehensible mind of the universe.

I am the man who first conceived the plow.

My hands fashioned its rude shear of wood and with it

turned the soil.
I raise the grain that feeds the armies of the world.

And I walk to and fro throughout the land seeking
a master.

The Master rubs the Lamp.

I build factories and mills and palaces for him.

My children toil and sweat in his service; we live in a hut.

I delve deep in the earth and mine the coal and iron that

give mankind dominion over brutes.
I build roads of stone and steel, and bridge the torrents and

chasms that divide the mountains.
I build great ships and sail them o'er the seas, then bring

them safely into port laden with treasure and meekly

lay it at the master's feet.
Without my loyalty to mastership, ignorance and poverty

would vanish from the earth.
And still I feel the goad
Of human needs and bend beneath my load.

The master rubs the Ring.

I fight the battles of the king.

At his command, I wound and slay my fellow worker with-
out cause.

I dive beneath the waters of the sea to sink and destroy

that which I have built.
From the clouds above, I hurl thunderbolts of fire and

death upon the children of the land for hire.
Sated with scenes of cfirnage and suffering the torments

of the damned,
I envy the felon his prison life and easy death.
I am a creature who feels
Upon his neck the crush of iron heels.

The zephyr is my pathway to the skies;

I ride among the clouds and mount above the storm.

The fabled powers of Jove are mine; in my hands — Death,

to dispense, to withhold.
The lightning is my messenger.
I speak across continents and seas with tongue of fire and

herald the Pentecost of war.
Listen! a message to you, Fellow Workingman:
"Thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground."
Listen! a message to you, King:
"Thou Shalt not kill!"
And above the awful raging of the storm of war and battle,

I hear a voice saying:
"Peace, be still." — -'Tis my soul, crying peace!

And when I speak the word, war shall forever cease.

The scales are falling from my eyes;
I think I see a light arise.

Page twenty-two

Fives of Love (Continued from page 15)

How fitting a symbol it is of the love of the God of die
Universe! For it lifts our hearts above the mundanity of
earth to a plane where we sense a kinship with the Infinite.
This star typifies aU the greatness of Nature for us, and in
loving this one star, we also love the intangible, elusive, yet
all-pervading God of Life.

THE FLAME OF THE VESTALS.

You remember how in ages past the Romans kept burning
in the temple of Vesta a fire diat was never allowed to die.
It was fed by maidens, and if they violated their vows of vir-
ginity, never again might they tend the sacred flame. Every
true Roman worshipped at the altar of Vesta, who typified in
a larger sense the union of the nation. And every Roman knew
that the sacred flame was ever burning, although he did not
constandy make the oifering before the temple.

I like to think of such a fire as representing the love of
friendship — the REAL friendship that lasts, that never wavers
in constancy. Only he whose life is pure can hope to receive
from service at friendship's shrine the helpful mental stimulus,
the understanding sympathy, the warm love and exaltation of
spirit; and only he who will sacrifice can reach the heights to
which these experiences can take him.

How dear to friends is the thought that though they may not
always bring offerings to the altar and be worshipping with a
heart as humble as the bended knee, the sacred flame of
friendship is burning still the same, fed by the purity, the
loyalty, and the sincerity of the lives of those who minister
unto it.

THE FIRE OF LIFE

When the Infinite breathed into us the fire of life, we were
given a spark of the fires of loves, as well as the beginnings
of hatred and strife. Our whole being, then, wkh its activities,
is a blend of the various fires of life. If we develop our
bodies, our minds, our spirits with conscientious care, and
keep them so unified as to evolve for us the highest efficiency
for the use of ourselves and humanity, our lives wW be living
fires of love.

And so, can not we who see and feel the beauty of these
fires of loves, try to make our lives as bright, as beautiful,
as pure as the fiery flames and the love they symbolize?

Unfair District Representation

(Continued from page 9)

Democrats, polling 54,242 votes, however, elected twice as
many, i. e., four when they were entitled to only three. A
little combination of Democrats, Progressives and a few Social-
ists, numbering only 7,944 elected one Senator; but neither
19,053 Democrats and Progressives nor 19,250 straight Social-
ists could get any Senatorial representation whatever.

In the Assembly the unjust district system fairly outdid
itself in disfranchizing Democrats. 224,476 Democratic voters
succeeded in electing only nine Assemblymen when proportion-
ally they should have had twenty-two. A combination of
39,694 Republicans and Democrats, less than one-fifth the
number of straight Democrats, elected only one less Assembly-
man, eight as against nine. Another combination of Republi-
cans Democrats and Progressives, comprising 69,956, elected
1 Assemblymen. That is, a group less than one-third as strong
numerically as the straight Democrats, elected one more

The Western Comrade

member of the Assembly than those seime Democrats. Again.
7,097 voters of various faiths combined to elect one Assembly-
man, but 56,751 Socialists got no representation.

When we turn to Congressmen we find that the Progressives
get a rough deal, for 31,181 of them are denied a voice and
vote at Washington, while only 30,042 Democrats with a
sprinkling of Socialists elect one member. Republicans, Dem-
ocrats and Progressives to the number of 58,826 elect a
Representative, but 60,797 Socialists remain unrepresented.
Comparatively speaking both Republicans and Democrats suf-
fer from an utterly illogical combination in National politics
of Republicans and Democrats, for 109,992 Republican Demo-
crats elect two Congressmen, while nearly twice as many
straight Democrats elect only three, and nearly three times as
many straight Republicans elect only four Representatives.

The figures which I have cited show conclusively that under
the district system there is no certain relation between votes
and representation. The fact as to whether the majority rules
or not is left to the utterly hap-hazard grouping of the num-
erous districts. As a matter of fact in many instances the
minority controls the legislature and the majority is left im-
potent. The actual weight of any vote is a matter of purest
chance. Unjust, inequitable, misrepresentative, the district
system of election must go.

Llano Getting on the Map

(Continued from page 7)

once, and as a result, one of the most artistic affairs in the
history of Llano was consummated.

The Assembly Hall was arranged to represent a church. An
aisle was arranged from the double doors down to the plat-
form where the ceremony was performed, and prettily enclosed
by white ribbons running on white ptosis ornamented with pink
roses and greenery. The aisle was outlined overhead with
wedding bells, decorated with roses and pink ribbons and
ending with a large bell of the same description. The electric
lights were veiled in pink and white. Carnations and sweet
peas abounded on the walls and ceiling.

The wedding ceremony was perfomed by Rev. Louis A. Pier
and was an impressive ring service, the charm and loveliness
of which is difficult to describe.

The orchestra played the celebrated Lohengrin wedd.ng
march as the wedding procession marched slowly up the aisle.

When the ceremony was over a reception was held at which
refreshments were served.

My object in repeating the description of the waddmg is
to point out some of the advantages of a co-operative com-
munity. Had this event with its dehghtful arrangements, its
beautiful decorations, and its impressive music by a twelve-
piece orchestra, been held in any other city or village, it would
not have cost less than $500. The cost here was insignificant.
The services of those engaged in making the ceremony the
success it was, was enltirely gratuitous and gladly given.

Llano is three years old. It has a record of achievement.
Many will come and some will go, but always many more
will come than those that will go. Those who stay, overlook-
ing for the time the few ofttimes annoying inconveniences,
will be the inheritors of the labors of those who have con-
tributed to make Llano what it is today and is going to be in
the future.

Llano, with its industrial and psychological problems, is a
mecca to which thousands will come and from which vfiW be
marked the program ithat pointed the way out of the
wilderness.

The Western Comrade

Page twenty-three

This Man Won a Membership

in the Llano Colony

by Securing Subscriptions to the

LLANO PUBLICATIONS

Here are some Winners in the Fir^ $2000
Grand Membership Circulation Conte^

EWALD SANDNER, Illinois, won the Membership in the Llano del Rio Colony.

Others who won Llano stock in the contest

ERNEST BODEN, Canada.
CHRIST COJANUS, IlUnois.
WALTER ELLMAN, New York.
GEORGE TRUST, Washington.

The SECOND Grand Membership Circu-
lation Contest is now on. Most of those who
won premiums in the first contest won them
with absurdly low numbers of subscnptions
turned in. Enter at once and win in the new
contest.

EWALD SMDNER lives in Illinois. He
worked industriously in the First Grand
Membership Circulation Contest cind soon
obtained the lead, which he retained
throughout the entire contest.

Join Our New Conte^ Now

Llano Publications

Conte^ Department - - - Llano, Calif.

Reduced Freight Rates

on Shipments of

Household Goods

from all Easlem pointi

to California

Members of the Llano del Rio Colony will find it especially
advantageous to make their shipments through the

JUDSON Freight Forwarding Co.

443 Marquette bldg, Chicago; 324 Whitehall bidg. New York;
640 Old South bldg, Boston: 435 Oliver bldg. Pittsburg; 1537
Boatmen's Bank bldg, St. Louis; 518 Central bldg, Los Angeles;
855 Monadnock bldg, San Francisco. WRITE NEAREST OFFICE.

YOU CAN BUY THE LLANO PUBLICATIONS IN SAN FRANCISCO
at the People's Library, 2079 Sutter street, and at 1350 Fillmore street.

What Are You Good For?

Did you ever try to find out?

Are you employed at work for which you are best fitted?

Do you KNOW or are you GUESSING?

Your children — what will you advise them to do?

The science of Character Analysis will answer the questions you have
asked yourself. It is not fortune telling. It is not guess work. It tells you
what you are fitted for and gives you the reasons. It tells you why
you have not succeded in what you have attempted and will show you in
which lines you can hope to succeed.

An analysis of yourself will cost you something and it is worth many
times what it costs; but information about it — that is free. Just write:
"Send me free information about Character Analysis and Vocational Fit-
ness." Write your name and address very plainly. Send it to:
P. 0. Box 153, Uano, California

CLASSIFIED ADS

Rates: 25c a line for one insertion; 15c a line thereafter,
to the line. Advertising payable in advance.

Twelve words

"Tf4E NEW EARTH." Ocean beds become vast fertile plains.
Earth watered from within; even deserts bloom. Deductions solidly based
upon divine laws. Fifty cents, no stamps. Cross Publishing House,
Nuevitas. Cuba. JJA

FOR SALE.— BREEDING RABBITS. BELGIANS. NEW ZEALANDS. AND

Renush Giants. We can supply all ages up to eight months. For farther
iaformation address Rabbit Deparknent, Llano del Ri« Colony, Ii«n«, Cal.

Llano Job Printing

The Llano del Rio Printing and Publishing Department is now
equipped to handle job printing.

Cards, leaflets, booklets, stationery, etc., will be handled in a
satisfactory manner, and at prices which will compare more than
favorably with those found elsewhere.

All work will be given the union label unless otherwise re-
quested. Every employee is a Socialist and a union man.
The Llano Publications, Llano, California.

/

Walter Thomas Mills

Is Now Associated with the Llano del Rio Colony

Comrade Mills is known to every Socialist and radical in the United States, and
is also widely known in Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, and Australia. He has
been an active worker for many years as a speaker and writer. He has been identified
with co-operative efforts of various kinds. After watching the Llano del Rio Co-operative
Colony for three years, studying it closely, and realizing the certainty of its success he
has identified himself with it as BEING THE LIVEST AND MOST CONSTRUCTIVE
PHASE OF THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT IN TH'Z UNITED STATES TODAY. This
is what he says:

"For Every Job in The United States

Someone Has Invested, in Something, $10,000

This is the average cost of a job in this counitry. But if you buy your own job even
at this price you would escape exploitation only at one point. You would still be rob-
bed everywhere else just the same.

"You can own your job at Llano, Los Angeles county, California, in the most
productive county in America, have you own house with the best of schools, free med-
ical aid and hospital care, with the best social life, and so become your own employer,
have for yourself your total products with a million dollar working plant co-operative-
ly manned and managed, covering twenty lines of industry, and so escape exploita-
tion at twenty points instead of one and that where no boss or trust can rob you of the
means of life."

Comrade Mills is going to lecture on "Co-operation in Action" with particular ref-
erence to the Llano Colony.

The Western Comrade

Will carry a Leading Article Each Month from the pen of Comrade Mills.
Watch also for the

EDITORIALS BY JOB HARRIMAN

STORIES ON THE LLANO COLONY

FIRST-HAND CO-OPERATIVE NEWS

And Many Other Instructive Features

The Second Grand Membership Circulation Contest
Is Now On-— Earn a Membership

THE LLANO PUBLICATIONS ARE FOREMOST IN TEACHING SOCIALISM— HELP
GET SUBSCRIPTIONS TO THEM NOW!
Write at Once for further Information: Contest Department —

The Llano Publications, Llano, California

m

'Zor ED TO Tf7r~EKUi^ '^^^~ p7P

^\

:^ K\

^^ Wester^ ^2^^^

September, 1917

Price Ten Cents

Features:

Page Page

Editorials by Job Harriman 3 Co-operation in Russia 14

Llano's Assets 8 Co-operative Banking by Clinton Bancroft 16

The Wreck (Story) by Ethel Winger . . 10 Evening Thoughts by Dr. John Dequer , 17

Was Schmidt Guilty? 12 Terms of Peace by Ida Crouch-Hazlett . 20

The Gateway To Freedom

Through Co-operative Action

THE LLANO DEL RIO CO-OPERATIVE COLONY is located in
the beautiful Antelope Valley, in the northeastern part of
Los Angeles County, Southern California. This plain lies
between the San Gabriel spur of the Sierra Madres on the south
and the Tehachapi range on the north. The Colony is on the north
slope of the San Gabriel range. It is almost midway between
Palmdale, on the Southern Pacific, and Victorville, on the Santa
Fe railroad.

The Llano del Rio Co-operative Colony is made up of persons
who believe in the application of the principles ' of co-operation
to the widest possible extent. Virtually all of the residents are
Socialists. It is a practical and convincing answer to those who
have scoffed at Socialist principles, who have said that "it won't
work," who have urged many fallacious arguments. In the three
years since it was established, the Colony has demonstrated thor-
oughly the soundness of its plan of operation and its theory. To-
day it is stronger than ever before in its history.

GENERAL INFORMATION

The Llano del Rio Colony is the greatest Community enterprise
ever attempted. It was founded by Job Harriman, May 1st. 1914,
and is solving the problem of disemployment and business failure.
It offers a way to provide for the future welfare of the workers
and their families.

The Llano del Rio Colony is a horticultural, agricultural, and
stock-raising enterprise, with such manufacturing as will supply the
needs of the colonists, with perhaps something to sell when the
Colony has grown.

It is a perfect example of Co-operation in Action. No community
organized as it is, was ever established before.

The purpose is to solve the problem of unemployment by provid-
ing steady employment for the workers; to assure safety and com-
fort for the future and for old age; to guarantee education for the
children in the best schools; and to provide a social life amid sur-
roundings better than can be found in the competitive world.

It has more than 800 residents, making it the largest town in the
Antelope Valley. More than 200 children attend the schools. The
Montessori school is in operation, taking the children from IY2 to
6 years of age. A new school building is soon to be built.

The Colony owns a fine herd of splendid dairy cattle, 100 head
of young stock are on the range, being heifers and calves up
to 2 years of age. Over 100 head of horses and mules, in-
cluding colts, are owned by the Colony. These, with two tractors
and caterpillar engine, four trucks, and numerous autos, do the
hauling and the work on the land.

A recent purchase of Duroc-Jersey sows gives the Colony thirty-
eight registered high-class breeding sows and 2 splendid boars, the
nucleus of a great development along this line. Many new pens
have been built. Registration will be kept up and the raising of
fine hogs made one of the leading industries. There are also some
fine Berkshires, and a large number of grade sows.

The Colony has more than 400 acres of orchards.

Community gardening is carried on, and an increased acreage
will be put in each year.

The ideal is to farm on an extensive scale, using all manner of
efficient labor saving machinery and methods, with expert and ex-
perienced men in charge of the different departments.

Llano possesses more than 668 stands of bees. They are cared
for by expert bee men of long experience. This department ex-
pects to have several thousand stands in a few years.

The Colony has secured timber from the San Gabriel Reserve,
and has a well equipped sawmill. Lumber worth $35 to $40 a thou-
sand will cost the Colony only a few dollars a thousand.

Social life is delightful. A band, several orchestras, a dramatic
club, and other organizations assist in making the social occasions
enjoyable.

Alfalfa does extraordinarily well at Llano. Much has been plant-
ed and the acreage will be increased as rapidly as possible. Six
good cuttings a season can be depended on. Ditches lined with

cobblestone set in Llano lime, making them permanent, conserve
water and insure economy.

LLANO INDUSTRIES AND INSTITUTIONS

Among the industries of Llano, to which new ones are con-
stantly being added, are: Printshop, shoe shop, laundry, cannery,
warehouse, machine shop, blacksmith shop, planing mill, lime kiln,
saw mill, dairy, cabinet shop, alfalfa, orchards, rabbitry, gardens,
hog raising, stage, lumbering, magazine, newspaper, doctor's offices,
woodyard, vinegar works, bakery, fish hatchery, barber shop,
baths, swimming pool, studios, hotel, drafting room, post office,
commissary, camping ground, granunar school, Montessori school,
library, two weekly dances, brass band, orchestra, socialist local,
and others.

NO CONSTITUTION OR BY-LAWS

Many persons who want to know how the affairs of the
Llano del Rio Community are conducted think, in order to get
this information, they must secure a copy of a constitution
and by-laws. There is no constitution. The Llano del Rio Com-
munity contents itself with a "declaration of principles" which is
printed below. The business and fincuicial affairs of the enter-
prise are conducted by the board of directors who are elected by
the stockholders. The corporation by-laws are the stereotyped cor-
poration by-laws of almost every state. The only innovation is in
the restricting of anyone from voting more than 2000 shares of
stock, regardless of how many shares are held. As this is to be
the ultimate holding of every member, this is considered a strong
protective clause. The incorporation charter is also the usual type
and gives the corporation the right to transact almost all manner
of business. The Nevada corporation laws are liberal, safe, and
well construed. There is no disposition on the pari of state
officials to interfere.

DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES

In conducting the affairs of the Llano del F^o Community it
has been found that the fewer inflexible rules and regulations
the greater the harmony. Instead of an elaborate constitution
and a set of laws the colonists have a Declaration of Principles
and they live up to the spirit of them. The declaration follows :

Things which are used productively must be owned collectively.

The rights of the Community shall be paramount over those of
any individual.

Liberty of action is only permissible when it does not restrict
the liberty of another.

Law is a restriction of liberty and is only just when operating
for the benefit of the Community at large.

Values created by the Community shall be vested In the Com-
munity alone.

The individual is not justly entitled to more land than is suffi-
cient to satisfy a reasonable desire for peace and rest. Productive
land held for profit shall not be held by private ownership.

Talent and intelligence are glfls which should rightly be used
In the service of others. The development of these by education
is the gift of the Community to the individual, and the exercise of
greater ability entitles none to the false rewards of greater pos-
sessions, but only to the joy of greater service to others.

Only by identifying his interests and pleasures with those of
others can man find real happiness.

The duty of the individual to the Community is to develop ability
to the greatest degree possible by availing himself of all educational
faciUties and to devote the whole extent of that ability to the
service of all.

The duty of the Community to the individual is to administer
justice, to eliminate greed and selfishness, to educate all and to aid
any in time of age or misfortune.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION WRITE

Llano Publications, Llano, California

P o 1 i t

Action

Co-operation

Direct Action

The Western Comrade

Devoted to the Caase of tke Workeri

Entered as second-class matter November 4th, 1916, at the post office at Llano, California, tmder Act of March 3, 1879.

PUBLISHED EACH MONTH AT LLANO, CALIFORNIA.
JOB HARRIMAN Managing Editor. •■^^ ^ ERNEST S. WOOSTER Business Manager

Subscription Rate — 75c a year; Canada $1. Single Copies 10c; clubs of 4 or mora (in U. S.) 50c. Combination with LLANO COLONIST $1.
Publishers and others are invited to copy at will from the WESTERN COMRADE, but are asked to give credit. Nothing copyrighted unless so slated.
In making change of address always give your former one so that the mailing department may be certain that the right name is being changed.

VOL. V.

LLANO, CALIFORNIA, SEPTEMBER, 1917

No. 5

Editorials By job Harrlman

THE International News Service is authority for the state-
ment that Germany now has 6,000,000 trained soldiers
in uniform.

The American Review of Reviews is authority for the
statement that it will require one year for the United States
to place only 600,000 men in Europe; a period of ten years
for the United States to become militarized as Germany now
is; that the German military machine can stand upon the de-
fensive and grind up human fodder for the next 25 years.

If this is true, Germany cannot be conquered by force
of arms.

ANY force that will overthrow the German crown is largely
within Germany. That power centers in the Reichstag.
The Socialists and Liberals have combined. Hindenburg and
Scheidemann have locked horns. Bethman-Hollweg listened
to Scheidemann and went dovm. Chancellor Michaelis is
now listening to Scheidemann and will likewise go down.
Hindenburg will not listen and Hindenburg will go down,
dragging the Kaiser and his crown with him.

The Hindenburg-Scheidemann controversy arose over the
plan of campaign in the East.

Hindenburg proposed to cross the Hills of Fodelia, pass
through the grain fields of Befssarabia to Odessa, and thus
reach the heart of Russia.

All the military authorities are agreed upon this policy.
If carried out, Russia would probably fall victim to German
arms. The military chieftains must insist that when Germany
failed to strike at this point last spring she overlooked the
best bet that history ever offered to an army or nation.

On the eve of the Russian Revolution Hindenburg said,
NOW OR NEVER!

Scheidemann said, NEITHER NOW NOR NEVER!

Such a course means to Scheidemann the betrayal of
the new Russia and the destrution of all the fruits, past and
prospective, of the Russian Revolution.

If the crown adopts the policy of Hindenburg, a social

revolution in Germany Is imminent. If his policy is turned
down, Hindenburg with his military machine will resign and
the crown will be vnthout a staff.

The German people will then join hands with the Russian
people and state their terms of peace.

But the British GOVERNMENT will not yet be ready to
state HER terms of peace.

SHE is fighting for DEMOCRACY.

THE Literary Digest is now self-appointed censor of the
editorial columns of the American press. She has
reviewed the editorials so long that her critical faculties have
developed into such an over-weening egoism that she feels
competent not only to criticise, but also to determine the
editorial policy of the press.

She is calling upon all her readers to forward to her Solon
all editorials that do not measure up to the high standard of
popular passion, ignorance, and superstition. She promises
upon receipt of the same to forward all such to the govern-
menit with full direction so as to what steps the government
would take in dealing out the proper punishments.

Even a suggestion of press censorship breeds hybrids of
Strange and unnatural form.

How devilish a self-appointed, uncalled-for sleuth must
feel!

The very spirit of it is enough to curdle the blood.

Made mad vrith much learning she is sinking her poisoned
fangs, rattler-like, into her own flesh.

The field of brilliant and original editorials, hers for years,
furnished a rich pasture to the "Digest," which it now seeks
to destroy in the name of Democracy.

The "Digest" has been living a dual and deceitful life. It
professes Democracy but lives Autocracy. The blood of
Autocracy that courses its veins makes putrid upon its lips
the word Democracy.

A CENSORSHIP FOR DEMOCRACY'S SAKE is the last
word in diabolical treason to our FREE and democratic in-
stitutions.

Page four

Editorial

The Western Comrade

THE American Review of Reviews says: "England has
probably 3,000,000 fairly well trained men in her re-
serve camps at home."

We are shipping scores of thousands of our young, un-
trained men direct to the trenches to be slaughtered while
the trained English soldier stands by and looks on.

What fools we mortals be!

American Soldiers, if sent abroad at all, should be sent
to the English camps to be trained and not one of them
should be permitted to go to the trenches until every trained
English soldier shall have gone before.

This is England's and Germany's fight for commercial su-
premacy and they should bear the brunt of the battle. If
we exhaust ourselves to win the war while England holds
back her 3,000,000 trained soldiers, she will have sufficient
power to force her terms of peace.

She tried that game upon us during the revolutionary
war, and also during the civil war. Can it be said that her
conscience will stand in her way today?

Is she not demanding 1 ,000,000 square miles of German
Colonial Territory? Will she change her mind if she con-
serves her forces while we exhaust ours by winning her victory
for her?

Not one American to the trenches until England's 3,000,000
reserves first have gone; this should be the battle cry.

THE difficulty of coping with the capitalist, backed by
the political power of the state, brought many laboring
men to a realization of the fact that there was a fundamental
weakness in their position. This consciousness of their weak-
ness has caused some to adopt the political theory in addition
to the economic, while others have lost hope and with many
of the former socialists are abandoning both the old economic
organization and political views, and are drifting into the
belief that individual direct action, sabotage, and syndicalism
offer the solution to the labor problem.

Out of the separation of the economic and political organ-
izations and the failure of organized labor to function politic-
ally has sprung a weakness that begets an abandoned hope,
that always leads to open warfare.

Whenever a nation abandons all hope of peaceably solving
any great and pressing social problem, then all the elements
of civil war are present.

So, also, whenever any class or any portion of a class
abandons hope of a peaceful solution of the problems that
beset them, they, too, are ready for open war.

As long as organized labor fails to use its political power
as a class, it will possess little social power and will be unable
to direct the legislatures, and hence the courts, and the military
force.

The weakness arising from this failure is laying the founda-
tion for a new labor movement which is taking the form of
Syndicalism in America.

These syndicalists stand between the economic and political

organization, the A. F. of L. and the Socialist party, and draw
alike from each.

There is but one means by which this tendency can be
checked and that is by establishing complete political unity
between the economic and the political organizations. Out
of this unity will spring great power — power on both the
economic and the political fields. By this unity legislatures
and judges can be elected, laws enacted and construed,
and the military force directed. The power springing from
such united action of the working class will give rise to and
sustain an abiding hope, for hope always abides in the bosom
of the man or class that has power to act.

Out of such union and such hope a constructive program
would spring and be rapidly enforced. This is growth.

If, however, the syndicalist movement should survive we
would be brought face to face with the necessity of another
adjustment. Whether we believe in individual direct action
or sabotage or syndicalism in its highest form, yet the workers
will meet with the army and navy, and be compelled to turn
to parliament for a minimum wage or work day, or some
other law, as has been done in England. This fact will give
rise to the theory of political action among the syndicalists
themselves, which they will either adopt or upon which they
will divide.

Ultimately the power of working class will mobilize politic-
ally and economically, if not intelligently — then blindly — be-
cause the greatest efficiency lies in such mobilization. The
process is rapidly proceeding, as the small property owners
are constantly losing their property and dropping from their
comfortable positions down into the ranks of the struggling,
teeming millions.

There they find an abiding place among the swarms of
workers dependent upon each other. For the first time they
realize their utter helplessness. Once they thought their su-
perior advantage was due to their superior intelligence, but
now they see that it was due to the power stored in the proper-
ty to which they held title. Having lost their property they now
perceive that superior intelligence and skill only measure
the additional wealth or power the possessor must part with
to his employer. How different the view point: Now their
hearts sink under the ravages of despair. How futile and
helpless their sordid egotism in this hour of need! How
insignificant they now appear, seeing themselves as others
see them! Realizing their weakness they turn to labor for
help, fully realizing that they will receive far more than is
in their power to give, but also as they give so will they
receive.

Thus the social passion is born in the heart and brain of
these new arrivals as they adopt the view point of the worker
and feel and perceive the suffering that follows in the trail
of the oppressor.

What a remarkable altruism that gives more to each than
each can return and yet that withholds from him who will
not give his best! What a natural and wonderful process
of welding together a great movement! From all to each

The Western Comrade

Edit(

>l

Page fiv

and each to all. Human life first, property second. In their
eyes property possesses virtues only in proportion as it min-
isters to the welfare of humanity. It becomes a vice when
it becomes a burden. To the workers it is now a burden.
Their lives are being drained to the dregs, into property for
others. Abolish the vice by abolishing the burden. To con-
serve the energy of each to himself is the common necessity.
To part with his energy for the benefit of others is the common
protest. Common ownership of all the reservoirs into which
our lives are being drained is the world cry of the workers.
To these reservoirs each shall contribute, from them each
shall draw, to the end that the energy of each shall be con-
served to him, and his comfort, well-being and unfoldment
made safe and secure. What an object for conquest! What
elements for a new civilization! What a sea of living, surg-
ing, organizing human power, ever swelling with its billows,
ever becoming more and more tempestuous, until the tyran-
nical, heartless ship of state, now triumphantly sailing thereon,
will finally reel, its hulk will break, and it will be swallowed
in the social deep, leaving behind it, at least for a while,
untroubled hearts, bound together by a common interest,
happy in their peace and good will. And thus will a working
class socialist state arise and thrive on the elements produced
by capitalism.

THE days of conscription are only beginning. Tlie young
men first, the middle aged next. Then, later, the older
men will be conscripted into industrial service. Still later,
property will be conscripted.

One would have thought that after centuries of Christian
teaching, human life would have been considered more sacred
than property. But alas! property has been conserved by
the strong arm of Senate and the lobbying force who are
working in behalf of the money powers and "democracy!"
That democracy which sacrifices human life to save property
is a strange critter.

The Democratizing of Property and the Aristocracy of the
Mob! Not yet — but soon!

o ■

ONE man in America has an income of $10,000,000. He
probably is a married man. The Lord saves such men
on earth, for the rich shall not enter into the Kingdom of
Heaven. And would it not be a crying shame to send them
to hell, especially by way of the trenches?
o

THE card house of profits is tumbling. This is the apex
of the capitalist system.

This is holy ground upon which governments and popes
fear to tread.

Peace is the reverberating echo returning from the con-
scription of profits.

What a cry of peace will go up from the lips of plutocracy
as the law proceeds toward the conscription of profits!

PEACE TO SAVE MONEY, BUT NO PEACE TO SAVE
MEN!

THE parliament of England has been informed by the
lawyers of the Crown of England that it is unlawful
for the subjects of the Crown to confer on terms of peace
with the subjects of belligerent nations.
How thoughtful!

England will not state her terms of peace. No crowned
head will state its terms of peace. No capitalist government
can state its terms of peace before the issues of the war are
settled.

Capitalism survives by conquest. Terms of peace can only
be dictated by the capitalist conquerer after the victory.
o

SOCIALISTS are proud, others are ashamed, of their con-
victions in these war times.

OF the 12,000,000 men called to the colors in Germany,
9,000,000 are still in uniform. Germany's navy is as
strong as it was in 1914. In addition, she has her U-boats.

We cannot conquer Germany by sending men to France.
The trenches are a bottomless pit into which we may pour
all the youth of America, and yet the chasm will yawn for
more men.

It is proposed to conquer Germany by way of the air. The
call is made for 10,000 aeroplanes.

Let us not underestimate the power of the opposing force.
The cost of ten thousand machines is not a drop in the bucket.
Germany will meet them with ten thousand more. Untold
numbers should be made and the number should be kept secret.

If this plan of campaign is adopted it should be backed
up with an endless stream of death-dealing machines as used
by Germany, and which aroused to the highest pitch of moral
indignation, England and America.
o

COMRADE W. A. Robinson objects to my statements that
"brute force is suicidal;" that "force is the law of
death;" and that "love is the law of life."

He says: "Force is universal and eternal;" that "force
is both constructive and destructive." All of which is true.
"Brute force builds our bodies" and "brute force tears them
down." The latter half of this assertion is correct. Again,
Comrade Robinson says, "Love, itself, is a force." Most
assuredly.

Love is the force that spells the harmonies of the universe.
It is that state of attraction and equilibrium during which
the chemical processes proceed constructively and cohesively.

Love is the antithesis of brute force.

Love is gentle, kindly, upright, truthful, frank, enduring,
reasonable, patient, forbearing, constructive, sympathetic, re-
fined and beautiful.

Brute force is ambitious, tyrannical, hateful, unconscion-
able, ruthless and destructive.

These are the meanings as applied to the social terms,
love and brute force. They are the very antithesis of each
other. Surely the one is constructive and the other de-
structive?

Page six

About LI

The Western Comrade

Conscription— What It Means to Llano !i^

e Manana

ONSCRIPTION! A new word in the vocabulary of
American democracy! An innovation in our national
life that promises to revolutionize social adjustments.

For the flrslt time we are brought face to face with

the actual value of men in industry. How the average com-
munity computes the value of its men and how Llano computes
their value is quite different. This difference is based on
their relation to the entire group.

The seriousness of conscription does not strike home so
forcibly in the average American comttiunity as it does in
Llano. As a rule, the average community is completely en-
veloped in the activities of capitalist industry and the
manifold manifestations of the capitalist system of industry
and government that accompany it. Its ideals are the ideals
of the present order. Its brand of Americanism is the brand
approved by groups of influential men of approved char-
acter. Its interpretation of events is the interpretation placed
upon them by those who are trusted to interpret correctly
but who oftimes unfortunately fall short of their task. In
short, the average American community has more or less
abandoned itself to an apathetic acceptance of things as
they are. For such a community to give up sons, fathers,
husbands and sweethearts to the horrors of war is a depriva-
tion, but does not constitute a calamity.

The loss of a conscript in the average community is not
felt poignantly as a community loss; it is felt most often
as an individual loss. His loss is mourned at best by relatives
or a few close friends. Then again, the ineyitable daily life
of the average community is such that in many instances
persons receive a direct pecuniary benefit from the conscrip-
tion of others. For instance, in a certain bank the drafting
of one man may mean that a dozen or several employees in
that bank will be advanced to higher positions— and will re-
ceive higher salaries. Here is a prolific source of selfishness
and mean disregard for the life of another. An employee
in this bank may have envious eyes on a higher position for
months, even years. His desire foi advancement may have
been fanned into a white heat by the knowledge that the
conscription of his superior is imminent. And on the day of
the departure of the conscript for war, he may shake hands
with him sympathetically, express his deepest sorrow at the
other's misfortune, and yet experience a secret satisfaction
that the last bar to the goal of financial advancement has been

let down.

What a commentary on our civilization! How is it possible
for the doctrines of the Nazarene to flower in a society wherf-
the fame of individuals is contingent on the misfortunes of
another?

In Llano we have the spectacle of several hundred people
held together not by blood ties, but 'by the inseverable bonds
of co-operative endeavor. Herd each inhabitant receives the
same remuneration, the same advantages, the privileges and
benefits. Here all are straining every effort to contribute
to the progress of the Colony. Here an injury to one is an
injury to all.

The members of the Llano del Rio Co-operative Colony
are members of a big [family. It could not be otherwise.
Every phase of Llano community life radiates from the com-
mon interest of all (the people. What affects one must of
necessity affect them all. No individual can possibly benefit
from the conscription of another. The loss of a comrade,
on the contrary, is a direct and quickly-felt loss to him. No

matter what position one may occupy, no matter what oppor-
tunities are created for personal aggrandizement by the con-
scription of a fellow-worker, i no financial benefit can accrue
to one. The destiny of the Colonists is a common destiny.
Failure or success in the enterprise is the common concern.
No matter how ! high in the management of the ranch or in
any other position of responsibility an individual may get as
a result of the total loss of a superior, his advancement can-
not be other than one with hollow and empty meaning.

Llano is yet a pioneer enterprise. It is but three years
old. Although its growth is phenomenal for the short time
in which it has had to develop, still its small army of pro-
ducers has been built up with much care and difficulty, and
with a great expenditure of time and money. Experiments
with referemce to the management of the affairs of the ranch
have gone on since the very inception of the Colony, and at
the present time many of the men — young and old^ — who
hold positions of trust and great importance, are absolutely
indispensable to the welfare of the enterprise. There are
men in charge of various industries of the ranch, who alone
understand that particular work, and who could not be re-
placed by other Colonists without considerable apprenticeship.
The loss of these men would entail a serious handicap.

Recently, word was received from the United States Gov-
ernment that ten young men, between the ages of 21 and 31,
had been selected from Llano to appear before the military
authorities subject to physical I examinaition, and, later, if not
exempted from military service, to be sent to the battlefields
of Europe.

This news came as a Istartling blow to every member of
the Colony. Although all had realized that Llano could not
be so foi'tunate? as to be entirely exempt from the visit of
conscription, still little thought was given to the matter. When
apprehension became an actuallity, gloom spread like a pall.

All of the ten young men who were selected to assist the
Allies in making the world safe 'for democracy are assets to
the Colony — are young men whose absence, eVen for a short
time, would seriously impair industrial operations. Their com-
plete loss would, of course, be' even a greater injury.

It seems unfair that the community of Llano has never
been consulted about the matter; has never been asked
whether she wishes to sacrifice her sons to a cause which
has not the remotest connection with her prosperity or suc-
cess. It seems unjust that these young men themselves have
no voice as to what purpose their lives shall be dedicated.
But it is useless to protest; it is a waste of breath to denounce;
it is suicide to revolt or disobey. The huge 'war machine
which now dominates our country controls everything and
everybody. We can only deplore the disrespect for the
sacredness lof human conscience that permeates the patriot-
ism of our time.

One of the young men who has been drafted is a mechan-
ic of exceptional ability. He is an inventive genius. He
has invented several devices that, when patented and sold,
promise to bring great returns. His originality and adeptness
in anything he undertakes has been of incalculable value
to the Colony. Although, but a very young man, he recently
took charge of one of the most important departments on the
ranch, and although confronted with meagre equipment and
lack of ordqr, has in a short time, brought it to a high state
of efficiency. At present he is evolving a brilliant plan for the
• keeping of time for the entire ranch. This scheme, if com-

The Western Comrade

About Llano

Page seven

plated, will enable one to see on a board in graphic arrange-
ment precisely the number of workers on the ranch, the de-
partments in which the/ Jvarious workers are employed, the
number working in each department, those absent, and so
forth.

Another of (these young men is in charge of the water
development of the Colony — at this moment, perhaps, the
most important task with which the Colonists are confronted.
He is a miner of practical experience, and has been able to
keep an able crew busy at the tunnel and at the sumps in a
constant endeavor to increase the flow of water for irrigation
purposes.

Fred Allen making a batch of Laundry Soap m the Llano Soap Works.

Another is in charge of the accounting for the Colony.
This is another extremely important department, and one
which requires adaptability and experience, which this young
man possesses in abundance. As the ranch grows older, the
work of accounting grows apace, and it is highly nelessary
to have a man in charge of such work who has been familiar
with the Colony throughout the previous years of its develop-
ment.

One is in charge of the indispensable work of civil en-
gineering. The surveying of the lands, jthe laying out of
the ditches, the laying out of building locations; this is a work
that must be in competent hands. Llano will need this young

man to help in building the new city when the time comes
to start it.

Another has developed a minor industry to a state of
efficiency and self-support. Beginning with practically no
equipment, he is now in position to furnish Llano homes with
a useful household article on a large scale and obtaining
additional funds for the Colony by selling his product to
the outside world. He is also popular for his interest and
valuable service in stimulating various forms of recreation
and social amusements.

The remainder of these; young conscripts are extremely
useful workers and citizens and would be a credit to any
community anywhere. They are greatly needed in the
departments in which they are working and will some day
be equipped with the knowledge and experience to manage
different undertakings.

Llano cannot spare one of these young men. They are
worth, if their worth can be computed in money, thousands
of dollars. It is on them and such as they that the success
of this inspiring co-operative enterprise depends. They are
enthusiastic pioneers in a work where there are few enough
who have the vision and nobility of character to take it up.
Perhaps every community believes that it has young men
who arejas valuable as ours, but it is hard to convince us of
Llano that ten young men chosen at random elsewhere would
measure anywhere near those selected here.

However, we will not argue the point i about the relative
worth and character of the young men of Llano and those
of any other community. But a situation obtains in Llano
that is far different than that obtaining in any other com-
munity.

There is no doubt but what all of the young men of Llano
are opposed to the entrance of the United States into the
European War. Their opposition to war did not originate
in a fear to enlist in the present one. It originated in the
philosophy which thoy embrace which is opposed to war on
principle. They agitated against war and militarism and the
causes that make for conflict long before the European War
started. They contributed their hard-earned funds toward
making successful the war on war. They are all brave and
have the courage of their convictions. They are neither
pro-Teuton nor pro-.Ally; they are pro-Humanify and pro-
Co-operation.

Yet Llano is on the verge) of losing these young men. They
may be taken from her, never to return. A few may return,
maimed and incapacitated, unfit for productive labor, a curse
to themselves and objects of pity.

At this hour more ithan at any other, is Llano impressed
with the value of men. Never before have her human assets
been appraised as they are being appraised now. Never
before has it been brought home with such force that Llano's
wealth lies not in her material things, not in her orchards,
livestock, houses, and farming implements, but in her men
and women.

As before stated, in the face of the power of the govern-
ment, we of Llano are helpless. We can only hope that the
inhumanity of sending men to the front who conscientiously
object to war will become apparent to the people of the
nation, and will result in a popular demand for the repeal of
the draft law. We can only trust that the supreme injustice
of sending to war those whose convictions against war are as
strong as those of the exempted Quakers, will show the error
of conscription. Their consciences are their armor. Violence
fails in the face of the super-violence of war. But the quiet
conviction of an honest conscience may save them.

Page eight

All out Llano

The Weitern Comrad'

What Are Assets ?

I

S a range where thousands of head of cattle can be
pastured most of the year an asset?

If so, then Llano has an asset worth whatever sum
-' the cattle which can be marketed each year pay in-
terest on. The range lying in the floor of the Antelope Valley
has thousands of acres of grass, rich, nutritious grass. It
is estimated by conservative men that not less than 3000 cattle
can be kept there. It is a matter of water for the cattle and
development of this resource, largely. The price of beef
is probably never going to be very low again; the range
should return good results year after year.

Is a mountain side covered with timber an asset?
If so, then the lumber possibilities here are worth many
thousands of dollars. The lumber road built into the moun-
tains can be used to bring hundreds of thousands of feet
of lumber into the Colony to be used for building purposes.
The road is built, the mill installed, the logs cut, the men on
the job. Lumber was never higher in price. It should be
possible to sell lumber to neighbors at prices attractive to them

i

WM

kmm

^^pp

a^S

I

M

^'^^^hBb^B

fe

Bm

M^H

View from Machine Shop looking toward Llano Hotel. Llano del Rio
Company offices in foreground.

and thus bring in cash income, besides having all we need
for our own purposes.

Is land that can grow fruit trees which should produce
from $250 to $1000 an acre an asset?

A neighboring district, similarly situated and not more than
10 miles away, specializes in pears. Virtually nothing else
is produced. The residents are specialists in Barlett Pear
production. They know market conditions. A kindly climate
has made it possible to grow pears along the north slope of
the Sierra Madras that are of unsurpassed quality.

Pears are not difficult to grow to perfection in this partic-
ular region. The high prices are due to their keeping pro-
perties. They are perhaps not to be surpassed for commercial
purposes anywhere in the United States. Land owned by
the Llano Colony can grow such pears. The trees do not
require a great quantity of water when cultivation goes hand
in hand with irrigation.

It is quite probable that many thousands of acres of land
could be put into pears. The lowest estimate made by a most
conservative person is 5000 acres. Many make their estimate
much larger. But letting it stand at that, the pear industry
oifers good prospects. Pear orchards which have begun to

produce well are valued at $500 to $1000 an acre, sometimes
more. A nearby orchard is reported to have returned $1000
an acre this season. Perhaps this is figuring too much. But
at any rate, the returns are high. Suppose they are only
half of this amount. Suppose the investment is paying 10
per cent. Then the value of the land is $5000 an acre.
However, cutting this down again, it can be seen that with
all due respect to conservatism, the value of pear lands are
extraordinarily high. Put your own valuation on them. Put
it as low as you want, making every allowance you can think
of. Then take the minimum of 5000 acres which can be
set to pears, which is again the lowest estimate. The value
is quite impressive, isn't it.

Is a town an asset?

The collective method of conducting industry and farming
operations naturally makes a common housing center, a town,
necessary. Instead of scattered homes the tendency is natur-
ally toward centralization. No matter what sort of town it
may be, whether it be laid out along old fashioned conserv-
ative lines, or whether the more highly organized circular
plan is used, a town is usually considered an asset. It re-
presents labor. It has value. The houses have cost money.
The public buildings are worth money. The streets, sewer
and water systems, lighting — all have a recognized value.
Contiguous land is enhanced in worth.

The city of Llano, whenever built, however built, or where-
ever built, must be an asset. It is an asset on which cash
can be raised. It can be bonded if necessary. And if it can
be bonded, then it muit have a value in the eyes of business
men.

Figure out the prospective value of the Llano Colony to
suit yourself. Add its ranges with its cattle industry, the
timber with the lumber industry, the land with the pear in-
dustry. Then put in the value of the city of Llano. Use
the most conservative figures. Those given here are very
conservative. But cut them down again if you like.

You v«ll be impressed with the value that can be given the
Llano Colony. This value can be given by labor and capital,
labor owning the capital. This is not a boost article. It can-
not be, because the figures are mostly your own and the
results what you yourself make of them. It is just an outline
of what can be achieved, with the suggestion implied that
these results will be secured, and the further suggestion that
time is an essential element and that quick results are not
to be thought of.

No mention has been made of industries, of other farm and
dairy products, of the many other avenues of profit. Use
them or not, just as you like. But think of the Llano Colony
as a place of great resource, at present almost wholly un-
touched.

Think of its assets of men and women who have the de-
termination to succeed. Think of them applying their labor
power to develop the resources outlined above. But don't
expect them to achieve the impossible and to accomplish
remarkable results at once. Llano has a magnificent future.
It has a setting that is marvelous. It is a project that is
economically correct. That it will meet hardships is to be
expected. But that it will succeed in realizing its high ideals
is inevitable. Llano is a spot of destiny.

* * *

"Of all the agencies which are at work to eleyate those who labor
with their hands, there is none so promising as the present Co-operative
niovement." — ^John Stuart Mill.

The Western Comrade

Page nine

Dawn of Humanism With Fire and Sword

By D. Bobspa

Humanism's

Dawn first lights the skies.

Glad sight to prophet-visioned seers.

Civilization's curse
Ends tomorrow.

Ten thousand years of civilization;

Ten times ten thousand years of human struggle.

And still a race of slaves!

Came speech

In that far primeval dawn, the birth of Democracy on earth

Giving the hairy tree-dwellers a common knowledge.

King Privilege

Throttled the infant Democracy, and began his reign
with Prometheus* gift of fire.

Bow and arrow, pottery, the taming of animals, smelting of

iron — -
All claimed by Privilege —
But strengthened the rule of the few over the masses.

Came written language
To further bolster special privilege.
And the voice of dead masters
Struck terror to hearts of living slaves.

Through all the ages ran

The red thread of Revolution

And the dream of Democracy,

Whose voice King Privilege could not stifle completely.

Came Commercialism and Trade,

Richest fruitage of Civilization,

Culmination of a thousand milleniums of oppression,

bearing its inevitable wars and strivings for stolen privileges.

Comes Humanism,

When the new world

Shall forget

The ten-thousand-year nightmare of Civilization.

Dark grows the night of Civilization's crazy day

And darker still shall be this night of horror

Ere breaks the davm

(Now visioned by the prophet-few)

That shall usher in the glad, bright day of

Humanism.

With fire and sword the men of old
Laid waste the world; for fame, for gold.
For pride of power or lust of land.
The diamond clay, the golden sand.
The proud flag in new fields unrolled.

Today another hope we hold.

The World Flag struggles to unfold.
Beneath it, nations hand in hand
Shall lose the hate that once was fanned
With fire and sword.

That people, proud and overbold.

Which outgrown horror has unrolled
Upon our world to-day, must stand
Worse punished by the murderer's brand.

Than all their outrage uncontrolled.
With fire and sword.

— Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Two Ways To Govern

By the process of commanding
Many people act as one.

Some ruling will

May hold them still
Or lift them to the sun.

If he be wise and great,

He makes a better state.
But if he fail, of no avail
Is all that he has done . . .

By the power of understanding
Many people act as one;
Their common will
May hold them still
Or lift them toward the sun.
As they grow viise and great.
They make a better state;
Solid and sure, it shall endure
Where all that work have done.

— Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Page ten

Fiction

The Western Comrade

The Wreck ^^ ^'^

el Winger

BRIGHT-EYED, bright-cheeked, bright-haired girl
oaded with unwieldly bundles, stepped from a
dingy grocery store onto the icy pavement, and
carefully guided her way through the crowd toward
the city's nearby tenement districts. Her face was smilingly
happy, and an anticipating light gleamed in her eyes. In
living over again the unique manner of making friends with
the newsboy who sold her the evening paper, and subsequently
with his dear sister who operated a machine that rolled the
bandage she used in the hospital, she gave no heed to the
throng of weary laborers and the wearier men who were
giving up the day's search for employment. She was only
conscious of happiness because she had been able to work
herself into their hearts to the point where she could, without
offense, get up a little birthday dinner as a surprise for Scrag
when he came home for supper. She was glad because it
meant a touch of humanity — because through them she had
gotten her first inkling of economic conditions, and, in her
growing interest, had discarded the fashionable "slumming"
of society days for the real life among the peoples of the ten-
ements. Her first step, taking training in one of the charity
hospitals, had also opened a wonderful new outlook on life,
giving a grateful sense of usefulness in the world's activity.

She had been surprised at first to find that the people she
met in her new work was more interesting than her highly-
educated, polished friends of unquestionable social standing;
they had lived more closely to life, gaining knowledge in sor-
row and suffering without losing by cultivation a certain
human touch. She had been taught to scorn the city's

"scum" as her mother called it, but the

moment she met Scrag's sister Minnie
who looked steadily and clearly from
quiet gray eyes that somehow made one
forget the cheap dress, the anemic form
and the pinched face, she had realized
that pride can be greater than poverty;
and finally, when she had penetrat-
ed the girl's reserve, she was prouder
of her friendship than of all her successes
of her last year's debutante season. And
this evening it was not charity in any
disguise but solely Nan's own inclination
that had prompted her to plan a birthday
supper, complete to cake and candles,
that would be the most wonderful feast
Scrag had ever known, outshining the
Newsboy's Chistmas dinner.

Obtaining a few hours' leave of ab-
sence from her hospital duties, she had
made an excursion to some nearby mark-
ets, carrying away all she could. Celery
leaves protuding from a long bundle,
bags stuffed suggestively, proclaimed the
nature of her errands. Not even the
heavy, careworn faces of the laborers
could repress her enthusiasm.

Reaching her destination, she carried
the bundles up two flights of stairs, paus-
ing a moment at the third. Then she felt
her way through several turnings of the
corridor, and stopping to fumble for the

Orma Johnston, one
at Llano. She is
"Llano Colonists."

key Minnie had given her for the occasion, she opened the
door and entered. The small room was dark, crowded, but
neatly clean. There were carefully cut magazine poster cov-
ers on the walls of which the only other ornaments were
faded chintz curtains that hid in irregular bulges the family
wardrobes. A cloth covered box of drawers holding a few
dilapidated combs, bru.shes and toilet articles, with a dingy
mirror above, an uneven bed, a small stand and some rickety
chairs completed the furniture. After removing her wraps.
Nan took the groceries to the kitchen and began rapid pre-
parations. She wanted to have everything ready by the
time Minnie came back from the factory and Scrag returned
for supper.

She started the coffee boiling while she opened warm pack-
ages from the delicatessen shop, and placed celery, bread and
butter on the table, covering the holes in the white oil-cloth
with the dishes.

Her absorption was interrupted by the entrance of Scrag's
father, who, shuffling wearily out into the kitchen, stopped
suddenly when he saw her.

"Good evening, Mr. Williams," Nan began quickly, noting
his expression of surprise. "Minnie said I might come in and
get up a little surprise supper for Scrag this evening — for his
birthday, you know," she added, as his manner had not
changed.

Williams' jaw dropped. It had been a long time since
he had seen a happy girl preparing a wholesome meal, or
speaking enthusiastically of surprises. '"Er — I guess it is the
tenth of January! I had forgotten — one day seems like an-

other." His voice ended huskily.

"Sit down and have some coffee while
we wait," suggested Nan. Eagerly he
took the steaming cup she offered him,
and gulped down the contents. He
watched her closely as she peeled an
orange, and talked commonplaces. But
Nan's sympathetic attitude always inspir-
ed confidence, and he was soon telling
her of his long search for work since
the strike. He had always managed to
find a few odd jobs until lately. Since
the riot, when Mrs. Williams had been
killed by a "strike-buster's" bullet, the
family had owed its support to the scant
earnings of Minnie, and the nickels Scrag
made with his papers. The doctor bill
and the funeral expenses were yet to be
paid.

As she sliced the last orange. Nan felt
a terrible nausea growing in her. Here
was John Williams — like many other
John Williams' in that city — strong
healthy, kind, goodnatured, with all his
spirit and initiative long since starved
out, unable to find even enough work
to support himself; living in the poor
wages of a frail daughter and a twelve
year old son. She thought of a "civiliz-
ation" that produced such wrecks. What
would eventually happen to Minnie?
Would she marry Jim Sullivan, and re-

of the Entertainers
attired in shredded

The Western Comrade

F i c t

Page eleven

ptat her mother's experience as a sickly, ill-nourished wif:
of a day laborer? Jim was employed in a garage — he might
work up to a higher place. And Scrag? What would happen
to Scrag? Scrag whose cheerful optimism and sparkling
personality twelve years of overwork had not yet been able
to crush; Would he grow into the dull, spiritless man his
father was? She called up a picture of Scrag, with his
irregular face, sad but for the twinkling blue eyes that were
shadowed by shocks of stiff red scraggly hair that had given
him his name. She saw him runnuig in and out the throng,
calling in a penetrating nasal tone — "Evening Gazette, Times,

Chronicle, — all about the big murder ." Suddenly she

looked covertly at the father, sitting dejectedly in his chair,
his face in his hands, his elbows on his knees. Her throat
choked, and her eyes grew hot. She felt stifled — felt that
she must get some air. Quickly she arose.

"Oh, there's something I forgot — I must run back and get it.
I think I'll be here before Minnie or Scrag return." She
hastily donned her wraps, and ran through the front door,
bumping into Minnie who was standing outside. "It ain't
no use" she heard her say, "it's Jim I like best." In the semi-
darkness Nan could only discern a man's figure.

"Oh, hello, Minnie," she said, pretending not to have heard,
"I was just going back for Scrag's book that I forgot to bring.
I'll be back before he comes, I think." She ran hurriedly
down the steps — anywhere to get away fro.m that atmosphere!

Gaining control of herself in the cold, bracing air, she walk-
ed rapidly till she came to the corner where Scrag was often
to be found. Before she saw the familiar ragged brown coat,
she heard his voice coming: "Evenin' Times, Gazette — all

about the big wreck "! She waited a moment on the

corner. Then she caught sight of him as he crossed the street.
She again marveled at the agility of small boys in general,
and of Scrag in particular, in passing through crowds and
traffic. He saw her from the distance and waved. He
dodged a street-car and gauged the speed of an approaching
motor accurately. But just as he darted past the huge fender,
the big car skidded on the slippery pavement. Nan caught a
glimpse of falling brown corduroy, and flying papers. Her
heart stopped, her knees weakened, but she managed to push
through the group that was speedily collecting, and reached
the inner circle. A chauffeur was lifting a limp brown bundle
that was becoming red in spots. She clutched the man's arm:
"Take him to the Hall Street Hospital-I know him-" she said.
Then she saw that the man was Jim Sullivan.

"My God! It's Scrag!" he cried.

Nan pushed him toward the tonneau : "You take care of
him, I'll drive" and jumping into the chauffeur's seat, she
grasped the wheel.

With every muscle she strained, seemingly trying to push
the car forward. Never had a motor seemed to creep so
slowly. Never had the streets been so crowded.

At last they reached the hospital. The resident specialist
was summoned at once, and she waited breathlessly in her
wraps while the surgeon, assisted by a clean, capable looking
interne, made a preliminary examination.

"A serious case. Both legs lacerated and crushed above
the knees. Amputation will be necessary. Have his- parents
been told?"

"I will send for his father; will you please call a messenger
while I write a note?" As she went out, the young interne's
eyes followed her, but she did not notice.

The emergency nurse was given the care of Scrag, and
Nan could not see him again that day. She learned later that
Williams had refused to permit the amputation, and that the

surgeon was going to wait a day, in the hope that it might not
be absolutely necessary.

Several times the following day she stole into Scrag's room.
His head was turned from the door, and she did not disturb
him. In the evening, when her work was finished, she tiptoed
into the spotless blue room. Scrag opened his eyes as she
ran her fingers through the thick, crisp hair. "Scrag! don't
you know me?" A smile crossed his face.

"Miss Nan " was all he could murmur, and his eyes

closed again.

She was aroused from her reverie by a nurse, who came
to call her to the office. There she found the specialist, calm,
scientific, persuasive; Minnie, crying in a chair .behind which
awkwardly stood Jim Sullivan; and Scrag's father, shifting
uneasily in his seat.

The surgeon acknowledged her entrance. "Mr. Williams
\vishes to see you," he said.

"Miss Nan, the doctor says they'll have to cut off his legs
or he'll die. Will they, now?" he asked piteously, searching
her face for hope.

Touched by the confidence in his appeal. Nan could only
answer: "Dr. Newton knows best; he would not say so unless
it were necessary, Mr. Williams."

"But I can't have him a cripple — a cripple" said the father,
scarcely aloud.

"But don't you see" began the specialist gently, "that it is
a question of amputation or death? We want to save him if
we can."

"I know" said Williams, choking, "So do I. But that's why —
why I can't — have it done. Scrag — a cripple!"

"Mr. Williams, your son's injuries are such that he will die
unless we amputate tonight. There is no possibility of saving
his legs ; surely you are not so heartless that you do not want
your son to live "

"Stop! for God's sake!" cried the tortured man. "Damn
you. don't you think I have any feelings? What is Scragg's
life now? What would it be if he lost both legs? He can't
make a livin' now, and if you make a cripple of him "

"But if he dies" — began Newton.

Williams fumbled at the door knob. "Let him die!" cried
the old man. "If he dies, he dies once. If he lives, he dies

a thousand " his voice failed him, and he shut the door;

he was gone.

A tense silence held them. All were staring fixedly at the
door where Williams had disappeared. Suddenly a sob filled
the room. Nan remembered Minnie. "Come to my room,
dear." and she drew her away, as the interne followed Mr.
Williams.

When Nan returned, she found that the father had been
persuaded to allow the operation, which would take place that
evening. She was present, for Scrag asked for Nan to nurse
him, and the authorities had consented.

The days following were the hardest she had ever known.
The emaciated face, the pathetic, pleading eyes of the once
merry boy haunted her. He became much weaker, and she
knew his ill-nourished system could not stand the test. One
evening she sent for the surgeon. "I think we had better
call his family" she suggested, tremblingly.

After a while Jim Sullivan, Minnie and her father had come.
Scrag had grown delirious. Minnie knelt at one side of the
bed.

Dr. Newton felt the boy's pulse. "He's dying," he said.

Minnie took her brother's hand. "Scrag — Scrag — " she
whispered.

(Continued on Page fourteen)

Page twelv*

The Western Comrade

Was Schmidt Guilty?

[This is (he fifth installment of Comrade Harriman's address in the
trial of the Los Angeles dynamiting cases.]

R. SCHMIDT told you that he met a man by the name
of J. B. Brice at Mrs. Lavin's. That he thought that
was his real name. That he did not know until
months later that J. B. Brice was J. B. McNamara.
That he, Schmidt, was then under his own name. This fact
is supported by all the witnesses of the state. That he had
used his own name e^-er since he arrived in the state in 1909.
That he was under his own name in Corta Madera where he
worked for seven months receiving five dollars a day for his
services. That he then went to San Francisco where he re-
mained for a short time, after which he came to Los Angeles.
That at all times while he was in Los Angeles he was known
by the name of Schmidt and by no other name. The State
produced only one witness to contradict this statement, who
said she met him in Venice under the name of Perry. She
was contradicted by three witnesses besides Schmidt him-
self, who swears that he was never known by and never
used or traveled under the name of Perry.

Schmidt then returned to San Francisco and took up his
abode again at Mrs. Lavins. It was there that Schmidt met
J. B. Brice. He told you under what circumstances they met.
He took the stand like a man; he answereid every question
frankly and without equivocation. We threw the doors wide
open. We asked him general questions. We made it possible
for the prosecuting attorney to ask him every conceivable
question that might, directly or indirectly, throw light upon
the issue at bar. But you men sat in amazement as you
watched the maneuverings of the clever attorneys, while they
were deciding that not one question should be propounded
to this defendant. They did not dare ask him a question.
They knew that every question that they could ask would only
further illuminate the innocence of the defendant. When they
said "No questions" every one of you was sorely disappointed.

I say he met J. B. Brice in San Francisco. He did not
know who he was. Hei thought he was J. B. Brice. There
is a conflict of testimony as to how these men met. The
District Attorney told you 'that they did not know to what
the witness Doctor Ashworth would testify when he took the
stand. They are accustomeid, as are all attorneys, to calling
witnesses without first knowing 'what they will say. Mr.
Keys, with his boasted thirteen years experience as a pro-
secutor especially, is in the habit of calling witnesses to test-
ify on matters of importance without knowing what they will
say. You will remember how often he has so blundered in
this case. Do j'ou remember whe|n Mr. Keys requested the
court to take a recess in order that they might talk to one
of their witnesses who had just arrived; saying they had not
had an opportunity to confer with him? And do you re-
member that' the court granted the request? Yet they brought
the witness Ashworth down from San Francisco, according to
Mr. Keys, and put him on the stand, and examined him,
without first confering with him. Mr. Keys told you that
they did not know what Dr. Ashworth's testimony would be
when he took the stand. I regret to say that that 'statement
is not true.

Mr. Woolwine — "I was fined for saying that to you."

Mr. Harriman — "No, you were fined for calling me a liar.
I know how to say it without being fined. I told you the
truth."

Mr
Mr
along
jurer.
Mr
Mr

Keyes — "We did not know."

Harriman — "Was he not seen by your men last spring

in April? Deny it on oath and I will prove you a per-

Keyes — "Oh, yes, I do noit know, but he was seen."
Harriman — "He was seen! They did not know! Do
you remember that Mr. Keyes told you that when a man is
found to be false in one thing that you should question his
veracity in all things? Look at him! This is the man who
professes to be prosecuting, not because he enjoys it, but
because of his "divine duty."

Mrs. IngersoU as Burns detective, told them of the Doctor.
He was a friend of hers. She knew how he could be induced
to shape his story. He was seen. His story was known. Ah,
his story was part prepared for him. The District Attorney
forgot his divine duty when he endeavored to lead you to
believe he did not know. He 'would deceive you to induce
you to give more weight than you otherwase would give to
the Doctor's testimony. Now what are the facts? J. B. Brice
came with Mrs. IngersoU and Dr. Ashworth to the house of
Mrs. Lavin when Brice met this defendant for the first time.
This was the testimony of Mr. Schmidt. We threw the doors
wide open. We removed every obstacle, and gave to the pro-
secution an opportunity to ask the defendant any question,
directly or indirectly bearing upon this case. We said, now
Mr. Prosecutor here is your chance, see if he can explain
his whcireabouts, make him contradict himself if you can,
show him up, tangle him, try if you dare to question an in-
nocent man. With all their boasted thirteen years of ex-
perience, and with their imported genious from Indiana, coupl-
ed with the skill and'accmnen of Woolwine himself, they
sat dumb as a mule, and silent as the tomb, in fear and tremb-
ling. "No questions," was their response.

Let us now turn our attetntion to the description given by
the various vsatnesses of the man who bought the dynamite
and his resemblance to this defendant. Summing them up,
their various statements were about as follows. '"They re-
semble," or "He resembles him but his hair was sandy," or
"He was light complected" or "His face was red," or "He was
shorter," or "He was fleshier," or "His shoulders were broad-
er," or "His cheekbone was crushed," or "His eye was all
right," or "He resembles him," yes, he resembles him, so also
does witness Bryson resemble the man. Indeed he resembles
the description in height, resembles it in weight, resembles
in breadth of shoulders, resembles in redness of face, and in
the drooping eye. Had he been arrested it would have re-
quired a far more careful and energetic defense on his part
than it has on the part of this defendant.

Even though he answers the description given by the various
witnesses far better than does this defendant yet we do not
even suggest that he is the guilty party. His cheekbone was
not crushed in and his hair was not sandy.

Let us revert to these descriptions more in detail. Upon
examination you will be forced to the conclusion, by the
testimony of McCall himself, that this defendant was never
in the office of the Giant Powder Works in San Francisco or
elsewhere.

It was McCall who said positively that this "defendant is
the man" who bought the dynamite. It has been five years
since McCall saw him. He has talked to the prosecuting at-
torneys and their representatives many times since he saw
the guilty party five years ago. Doubtless he has been de-

TKe Western Comrade

("age thirteen

scribed many times by the officers of the State in these conver-
sations and shown to him more than once since his arrest. But
a mere statement that "this is the man" should be set aside,
when statements made on oath before the Grand Jury five
years ago, if they be true, make the present statement false
and impossible.

What were the statements? Remember they were made
five years ago, while the incident was fresh in his mind, while
the picture was still vivid and before it had been blurred by
a procession of men involved in similar transactions and be-
fore he had been talked to by the emissaries of the District
Attorney's office whose conversations were fraught vsath sug-
gestions and assurances so misleading, cunning and clever
in their design. What was the testimony before the Grand
Jury to which we refer? Here it is.

Question — "What impressed you most?"

Answer — "As I remember the man, he had something the
matter with his left eye. I thought that the bone was broken,
but I could not see any scar; not that I was suspicious, but
I just wondered to myself what kind of a smash he could
have gotten without getting a scar, BUT THE EYE ITSELF
SEEMED ALL RIGHT."

WTiy did you not have McCall tell that while he was on
the stand? Was it your divine duty that caused you to con-
ceal it?

The fact is, the bone is all right but the eye is not all right.
It is out and sunken.

Listen! "I wondered how he could have got such a smash,
and broken the bone. But the eye was all right."

Shall this fact be set aside and forgotten?

The man with an eye that was all right and a broken cheek
bone, was not this deffendant.

In the face of this stubborn fact can you believe the mere
statement of McCall that "this is the man"?

Mr. Gilmore was also one of the clerks at the office in San
Francisco where the powder was purchased. He saw the
same man whom Mr. McCall saw and described. Mr. Keyes
the divinely inspired prosecutor questioned him while on the
stand. Yet this "fair" attorney did not ask this witness if
he could identify his defendant. The defendant was compel-
led to put him on the stand. What did he say? Listen, and
let his testimony sink deep into your hearts and minds, for the
statement he makes confirming the statement of McCall be-
fore the Grand Jury should be the determining fact in this
case. These stateiments alone show absolutely and beyond
the question of a doubt that this defendant is not the man
that purchased the powder.

Listen. The fair Mr. Keyes refused to let us cross-examine
this witness. He denied us the privilege of asking this witness
if the defendant was the man who purchased the powder.
He objected on the technical point that it was not cross-ex-
amination. He did not want the man to state the truth. He
knew what the truth was and that this man would state it. This
fair prosecutor whose duty is as profound toward this de-
fendant as toward the state, would rather hang a man on a
technicality and gain for himself a reputation, than to let
him go free upon the truth.

Upon the objection of Mr. Keyes the witness was excused,
and as he walked do\vn the. court room toward the exit
Mr. Kenzie asked the court "is it possible that we will be com-
pelled to hold this man here two weeks merely for the pur-
pose of asking him one question?" "No," said the court,
"bring him back."

He was then asked if the defendant was the man he saw
in the office with Mr. McCall. He said, "I saw a man that
resembled him. That man at the time met with some kind of

an accident like he had been hit with some instrument that
fractured the bone, not the eye." Two men saw the same
man Ave years ago. They described the' same defect in the
same way, a crushed cheek bone but an eye that was all right.
The man to whom that eye and that cheek bone belonged was
not M. A. Schmidt, this defendant. There can be no ques-
tion of that."

Question — "He resembled the defendant very much?"

Answer — "I do not say 'very much'; he resembled him."

This witness would not even say that the -man resembled
this defendant very much.

This defendant's eye is out and sunken, and his cheek
bone is as sound as a dollar and is as free from blemish as
is his heart from guilt. Come, Mr. Schmidt, stand before
them. Let them see for themselves.

Now let us turn our attention to the Argonaut Hotel con-
cerning which there has been so much said.

Who is Mr. Hill? He is the man who had talked to the
man J. B. Brice. This man Brice occupied a room in the
Hotel. Mr. Hill was the Hotel clerk. He had talked to Brice.
He knew him. He had changed him from a single room to
a double room so that two men could occupy it together.
They registered at the same time. But the defendant was not
the man. Hill never saw the defendant before. He is an
experienced Hotel man. His attention had been called es-
pecially to Perry. He remembered the conversation. He re-
membered the details about changing the room. But
Schmidt's face was a strange one to him. Yet he was trained
and had an unusually accurate ' memoi-y for faces. Surely
Schmidt is not the man.

Now comes a man by the name of Cook. He is a book-
keeper. He had kept the accounts of the Iron Workers at
Indianapolis for years. He knew the hand-writing of J. J.
McNamara and Hockin as well as he knew his own. He saw
their letters and signatures every day for years. He ident-
ified their signatures in the registers of various Hotels through-
out the country. In no case had his identification been ques-
tioned either by the state or by the government. The Arg-
onaut Hotel register was placed before him and he swore
that J. J. McNamara wrote the name J. B. Brice and that
Hockin wrote the name Perry on the register.

If his testimony is correct then it proves that Schmidt was
not there. If it was not correct it proves that experts on
hand-writing cannot be relied upon.

It reminds me of the expert who testified in a Pennsylvania
case, that a certain document was written by a certain person
with a forward movement of the right arm, when as a matter
of fact, it was written with a pe!n held with the toes of a man
who had no arms.

How easy this question could have been settled once for
all. The prosecuting attorney could have been demanded
that Schmidt write the name of F. A. Perry. But they did not
dare. They knew that he did not write it. We made it pos-
sible for them to question him concerning every detail con-
nected with their theory about the Hotel, but they were silent.
They preferred to rest their case upon the testimony of so
called expeirts, than to unfold the truth with this defendant.

The general manager of the hotel who was practically
always in the lobby never saw the defendant there. Only
a bell boy claims to have seen him on the day of his de-
parture. What evidence on which to convict a man! It is
too preposterous for serious consideration.

["Was Schmidt Guilty?" began in the IVlay number and will run
for several months. Back numbers, ten cents a copy.]

Page fourteen

Co-operatioa

The Western Comrade

Co-operation in Russia

(From "The Russian Co-operator.")

HE co-operative movement in Russia penetrates every
corner of the vast territory of Europe and Asiatic
Russia. It embraces 40,000 separate co-operative
units, and 12,000,000 of the empire's' male citizens.
The strength of the co-operative organization is increasing,
and the difficulties attendant upon military necessities have
only served to stir this organization and afford increasing
mutual confidence and sympathy, broadening the oudook of
old organizations, giving enlightened purpose to the new, as
they realize the ever more important part they are assuming
in the economic life of the nation.

The Russian co-operative movement is already fifty years
old but it has now acpuired the strength and vigor of manhood
under our very eyes. Witiiout exaggeration, it may be asser-
ted that no other country possesses a co-operative movement
so broad in scope or affedting so many classes in the economic

world. 1 1 r- £

Conceived and carried out by the people for the benefit of
the masses, Russian co-operation possesses all the force of
new and original democratic ideas, the breadth of organiza-
tion, characteristic business ability and caution in action. At
present the co-operative movement in Russia is fighting a stern
battle on behalf of the people against unprecedented high
prices, and it is making heroic efforts to relieve distress in the
rural districts. It undertakes the purchase of consumers' re-
quirements and sells their agricultural produce, both in Russia
and abroad. It has performed excellent work in providing for
the needs of the army. Huge supplies have been organized
by the co-operative movement under the direct auspices of the
state departments. Its financial position is sound, the turnover
of all the co-operative organizations approaching 2,000,000,-
000 rbls. The co-operative organization is a power which has
to be considered very seriously by the authorities. All this
has taken place during a period of political oppression and
in the absence of co-operative legislation.

In pre-Revolutionary Russia, the co-operative societies were
the only form of organizations, widely spread among the
masses. At the same time their membership was chiefly con-
fined to the peasants, while co-operative societies among the
working classes were weak and few. The food crisis provoked
by the war has increased the number of the latter form of
societies, and there is no doubt that their future growth will
receive now a powerful stimulus in the free conditions that
have been set up. This will also be the case with co-operative
societies in the villages, and the co-operative movement will
have to play a most important part in the social problems
which face the New Russia. It becomes thus a matter of the
greatest urgency to trace the relation between co-operation
and Socialism, as the political atmosphere is saturated v^fith
the ideas of the latter.

Whatever the origin of co-operation may be, it does not
by itself constitute Socialism, but on the contrary, it is rooted
in the present capitalist state. Co-operation is an economic
organization, based on private ownership and aiming at the
private-economic ad-vantages of its members. In a Socialistic
state there would be no room and no need for co-operation,
because the former presupposes the abolition of capitalist
economy based on exchange.

Thus co-operation pre-supposes the existence of an econ-
omic order based on private ownership. However, that does
not mean that co-operation is but one form of the capitalistic

state. Differing widely from Socialism, co-operation, at the
same time, is not the same as capitalism, and its whole object
is to fight the latter. But it fights it with its own weapons,
and the end of one must necessarily lead to the extinction of
the other.

But, being thus fundamentally different from Socialism,
co-operation can under certain conditions become a transition
form towards the latter. This is a view taken by many co-
operators, and, in this connection, it must not be forgotten
that co-operation originated from the socialistic ideas of Owen
and Fourier. These "ideas fell on a capitalist soil and gave
a peculiar fruit — co-operation."

Of greater importance than its origin are the tendencies
shown by co-operation: Does it tend to transform the present
order into a Socialistic one, or not?

The tendencies shown by the lines of the development of
the movement are different in the case of societies recruiting
their membership amongst peasants or amongst the working
classes.

Co-operation among workmen gravitates towards Socialism
in the form of collectivism, although by itself it cannot trans-
form the capitalistic order into a Socialisiic one. On the
other hand, co-operation among peasants, although radically
affecting the position of the latter toward the market, does
not destroy the existing system, but on the contrary,
strengthens their position in it.

Such are the limitations, inherent in the very nature of co-
operation. That, however, will not preclude it from occupy-
ing a prominent place in the social movement which is now
spreading in Russia.

"Therefore, fellow co-operators, go forward towards a
better future! Forward towards the Kingdom of Labor on
the basis of fraternity, equality, and liberty!"

1 ll6 ^VrGCK (Continued from Fage elcvcnj

He opened his eyes , seeming to recognize her, and smiled.
Then his lids slowly closed. A frown passed over his face.
He was speaking under his breath. All strained forward to
listen.

"Extra! Extra! all about the big wreck" — his voice trailed
off into nothingness. Then his face cleared, and he smiled
faintly. Minnie's head fell into her arms.

"Scrag !" she cried.

For a while nobody stirred. Then, oblivious to all the
others, Jim raised her gently. "Minnie" he said, "iMinnie, let
me take care of you now. Let me — "

For a moment she hung limp in his arms. Then she pushed
herself back, bracing her hand against his shoulder, and gazed
into his eyes.

"Jim," she whispered softly. And then "Jim!" she burst
out passionately "Jim, would you do all this over again?"
She motioned toward the bed, including in the gesture the
bowed, broken figure of her father.

Nan's eyes followed Minnie's to the face of Scrag. As she
looked, all the tragedy of his kind seemed to overpower her.
She staggered to the door. The young interne followed her
anxiously. In the hall he caught her arm. She lifted piteous-
tearfilled eyes to his, and saw understanding there, with some-
thing that made her accept the comfort of his shoulder. "The
big wreck — the big wreck — " was all she could say.

The Western Comrade

operation

Page fifteen

Co-operation the World Over

Notes About the Chief Co-operatives Gleaned from Many Sources

The Goodhue Co-operative Co.

Our company, the Goocfliue County Co-operative Company, Red Wing.
Minnesota, was organized in November, 1907, succeeding the Workers'
Co-operative Mercantile Company. The Workers' Co-operative Company
was organized in 1904. Its object was to improve conditions for the
working man. Prices of all commodities were advancing. The merchants
were well organized and arbitrary, and it was to counteract the effect
of the merchants association that the first co-operative venture was
launched. The effort was not a pronounced success from the start. No
sooner was the co-operative store opened for business, than the "other
merchants" began a campaign of price-cutting, belittling, and about every
known method to wreck the new concern, but the men who had organized
the co-operative were workers and fighters. The "other merchants'* said
the co-operative would not last three months. They managed to pull
through a year. By the end of the first year they had got over their
"stage fright," as it were, and could see a new vision. They got more
of their fellow workers to jom them. Shares which were at first sold
for $15.00 \vere now raised to $25.00, and trade picked up.

Pne first store was located in the west end of the city near the tile
works for which our city is noted. By
1907 farmers were becoming interested
in our store and after much discussion
and many meetings, it was decided to re-
organize the company on broader lines,
increase the capital, and open a store in
the business district. The services of Mr.
W. F. Vedder, now of the American Co-
operative Organization Bureau of Chicago,
were secured, and when one hundred and
seventeen subscribers for stock had been
secured, our present company was or-
ganized. Shares were sold at $100.00
each, and each subscriber paid $5.00 for
membership fee.

The volume of business for the first year
amounted to $57,000.00. We have grown
each year both in membership and volume
until last year we did a business of over
$268,000.00. and have about 450 mem-
bers. We have divided back in interest
and dividends over $35,000.00 and have
about $12,000.00 m our reserve fund.
During the year of 1916 in conjunction
with the Red Wing Realty Company, a
subsidiary of our company, we erected a
beautiful ne\v store building 1 12x1 16. right
in the heart of the best business district,
at a cost of approximately $100,000.00
complete.

Up to January 1st. 1917, we handled
only groceries, shoes and meats. In our new building we are handling
besides the above, dry goods, ladies' ready-to-wear, men's and boys'
clothing, hardware and farm machinery, and have space arranged for
furniture, carpels, rugs, linoleums, etc., as soon as we can gel capital
to add them,

Durmg all our efforts, we have had the most bitter opposition of almost
every interest of our city, especially the retail and financial, until some-
times those of us who are at the head of the institution wonder if it is
really worth while. Then again we look at our beautiful home, take
a big look into the future, gauge it by the record of the past, and try
to make ourselves believe that even the Lord of Hosts could have little

GEORGE F. GROSS, Manager.

Co-operation

distribution

Th

a c i f i c

Co-

operative League

In 1913, in the city of San Francisco, a few far-seeing persons decided
to combat the high cost of Hving by organizing their buying power. The
result was the Pacific Co-operative League, in which sure and immediate
benefits were obtained in co-operative and centralized buying.

The steady and rapid growth of the Pacific Co-operative League shows
it to be a permanent concern. Over 1000 members have joined and at
different points throughout the West and the state of California, strong
auxiliary clubs, and in some points stores, have been formed.

The benefits secured through the League are remarkable. A saving of
10 to 25 per cent in the grocery bill is common, and the saving on goods
other than groceries is considerable. One club in 1916 saved its members
$3000.00 on coal alone. Another club reports conservatively that the
saving was 25 per cent on purchases since affiliation with the Pacific Co-
operative League.

The League has the enthusiastic endorsement of many prominent pub-
licists and is an active member of the International Co-operative Alliance,
which numbers over 40,000,000 people. — From a letter from E. Ames,
President, Pacific Co-operative League.

Goodhue County Co-operative Co. Department Store, Red Wing, Minn.

Russia

effect on the co-operative

e

for

a "q

jitter."

Y

ours

for

CO

operative

success

.

Th

e

V

a 1 u

e

f

of

Co-operation supplements economy by organizing the
wealth. It touches no man's fortune, it seeks no plunder, it causes no
disturbance in society, it gives no trouble to statesmen, it enters into
no secret associations; it contemplates no violence; it subverts no order;
it envies no dignity; it' asks no favor; it keeps no terms with the idle,
and it will break no faith with the industrious ; it means self-help, self-
dependence, and such share of the common competence as labor shall
earn or thought can win, and this it intends to have. — G, J. Holyoake.

Co-operation in

The European War has had an invigorating
movement in Russia.

The co-operative societies, which now have a membership of more than
1 1 .000,000 have taken part in organizing public effort for supplying the
army with food, in careing for refugees and the families of soldiers.

The co-operative movement in Russia was 50 years old in 1915, the
first co-operative society having been sanctioned in 1865. In the first
40 years the progress was slow. In the last 10 years the movement has
been especially marked, so that today the movement, with a membership
of 11,299,404 has reached a position which is said to be far ahead of
that in all the countries of Europe. — The Australian Worker.

Co-operate !

When the prehistoric caveman lived and struggled long ago,
He was strong for independence as he wondered to and fro.
If he had a neighbor handy he would tear him Umb from limb.
And the thought of social meetings never much appealed to him;
Till one day a wiser caveman — sort of prophet, priest and scribe —
Pointed out the simple merits of assembling in a tribe.

"Let us work and fight as brothers, with our strength combined, ' he said,
"For we've got to get together if we want to get ahead."

— BERTON BRALEY in Organized Farmer.

Page sixteen

Propaganda

The Western Comrade

Co-operative Banking

By Clinton Bancroft

N view of the hostility existing between organized
labor and organized capital, it is strange that the
mimbers of labor unions continue to patronize the
banking institutions which are the very bulwarks of
that capitalism. Private banks (and by private banks I mean
all non-co-operative banks) furnish the "sinews of war" to
the very capitalism engaged in the war upon organized labor;
and the banks get those sinews of war largely from the de-
posits of their patrons. So that it may be truthfully said,
that the laboring people themselves furnish to capitalism the
means by which their own oppression is wrought by depositing
their money in exploiting banks which, in turn, loan it to ex-
ploiting capitalists.

It is strange that laboring people seem never to have
thought of that, and stranger still that their leaders have
never tried to organize these deposits in a way that would have
helped the people themselves or at least established depos-
itories where the funds of their people would be safe and at
the same time free from capitalistic
manipulation. The working capital of
banks is not furnished by the large
depositors. These keep their money
moving too fast to do the banks much
good. It is upon the aggregation of
small deposits that the banks depend
for their effective capital, and these
are furnished in the main by produc-
tive labor, by the working people. If
the working people should withdraw
their deposits it would seriously cripple
the exploiting banks; and if they
should go further and bank their earn-
ings with a co-operative institution it
would be a long stride toward solving
the labor problem, both by bringing
capitalism to a sense of its dependence
upon and subservience to labor, and
by helping to establish an industrial
system which, in itself, would largely

be a solution of that problem. The great mass of laboring
people do not realize the vast power that lies in the great
aggregation of their deposits in exploiting banks. Census
statistics show that deposits in savings banks alone amount in
round numbers to about five billions of dollars, and as the
average is only about four hundred and fifty dollars per capita,
these deposits may be said to belong to the laboring classes or
to those naturally in close sympathy with them. What amount
of deposits in other banks belongs to these same classes it
would be difficult to estimate, but it would undoubtedly reach
a large sum. The total deposits belonging to producing labor
must run well up to the seven billion figure. By depositing
this money in private exploiting banks, the vast industrial
power which that sum represents is voluntarily placed by
labor at the disposal of the capitalism of the day which uses
it to strengthen its own power and destroy the industrial hope
of the people.

It is voluntarily placed by labor in the hands of those whose
sympathies are against it, and whose active opposition will
always be felt against any labor movement that appears to
have a chance to succeed. If instead of depositing their sav-
ings in the banks of their industrial enemies they had organ-
ized co-operative banks and retained control of this vast

WHAT do the working
people do with their
money? Who gets the use of it
when they deposit it? Is there
no way in which they can reap
the advantage, collectively, of
the huge sums that are deposited
by them ? The great mass of the
laboring people do not realize
the vast power that lies in tn?.
great aggregation of their prod-
ucts in exploiting banks.

capital to develop industries operated on a plan that recognizes
the manhood of labor, the history of the last fifty years would
have been differently written, and the co-operative common-
wealth would have been fifty years nearer realization. If the
vast sums of money which labor deposits in capitalistic banks
should, in a reasonable measure, be turned to the development
of a new industrial system, the result would be a marvelous
transformation of the conditions of labor in this country. It
is strange that organized labor has never attempted to control
the savings of its own members, and turn the immense advan-
tages resulting from such collective control back to themselves.
One reason why organized labor has neglected so p>owerful
a means of helping along its cause as banking, has been that
the banking fraternity has for the most part succeeded in
keeping an outward appearance of neutrality in the contests
between labor and capital. The attention of the people has
never been forcibly called to the subtle part which these
neutrals actually play in the campaigns of capital. Another
reason, doubtless, was the common-
ly accepted belief that banking is a
very complicated and hazardous busi-
ness; that it requires a very high or-
der of talent to run it successfully,
when the fact is that it really requires
less business ability to conduct a bank
successfully than almost any other
business. Integrity, prudence and a
common-sense judgment of security
values is absolutely all that is required.
Any honest man with common-sense
prudence can with practical certainty
make a successful banker. Dishon-
esty and speculation are at the bottom
of the majority of bank failures that
result in loss to depositors. Failure
from legitimate causes are rare. But
the commonly accepted idea has pre-
vailed, and the idea never seems to
have occurred to the people that
banking could be conducted on the co-operative plan (that is,
so seriously as to assume the proportions of a general move-
ment) and on any other plan they were too wary of corpora-
tion methods to invest in shares even had it been suggested.

Another and very potent reason has been that organized
labor and labor leaders in the main have devoted themselves
solely to securing better wages and shorter days. They have
tried to fight it out on that line alone. Very little effort has
been made among them to help themselves by organizing any
sort of industrial plan whereby labor might be freed from ex-
ploiting capital. Labor leaders carefully refrained from such
efforts ; indeed, their policy has been to discourage the unions
as such from turning their attention to industrial reforms of
any kind. That they had some fair reason for such policy
can not be denied. They found labor unorganized and the
main thing was to organize, and they had to proceed along
lines of least resistance. But in later years the organizing
spirit and power of labor has been so well developed that
it is no doubt a great mistake, not to say blunder, to try and
hold the laboring people to the single questions of wages and
hours. It has been demonstrated that they are well able to
handle industrial and business enterprises most successfully;
(&)ntinued on Page twenty-three)

The Western Comrade

Page seventeen

"Evening Thoughts

??

By Dr. John Dequer

PLAYLET composed while musing alone in my room
at sunset.

The Antelope Valley as seen from the new-born
town of Llano might well be called the Valley of
Dreams. It is an almost mystic place. Its wide unbroken
reaches of semi-desert, swathed in a delicately soft purple
hase, above which the distant mountain peaks arise in sil-
houette against a turquoise sky have a tendency to place one
in an almost reverential mood.

The evening on which I first wrote these lines was one
of these; sublime in its tranquil majesty. It suggested the
thoughts of infinity.

The Infinite— What is it?

I had been reading an account of a particularly ferocious
battle. It seemed as if I could hear the wail of the dying.
In the conflagration of passion, life was being extinguished.

Life— What is it?

Here was the desert in almost infinite solitude and peace,
yonder were men whose every thought was blood and death,
and woe.

With these thoughts in mind I wrote, "Evening Thoughts."

The Infinite in the character of a Greek god is seen upstage
soliloquising.

The Infinite: I am all that is. I encompass the boundless
seas of two Eternities. Past and Futurity are my servants.
The center of the sun and of the remotest star are part of me.
I am time, space, and substance; boundless, endless, and un-
touched.

Life enters as a mlatronly woman, in the best years of life.
She Stands at the door and listens in silence while The In-
finite speaks. As he ceases she walks forward, addressing
him.

Life: Ah! What you say is true, my father, and yet
without me you are nothing, your elements are dead and pur-
poseless, a wilderness of forces, a chaos of ions, sere and
unlovely as the dead and barren moon. Unless I quicken.
Infinite as you are, you are not conscious of your existence.

The Infinite: Yet you, my daughter, are part of me; born
from the womb of my sweetheart. Substance, nurtured by the
blood of her elements; I am your father and keeper.

Life: It is true that I was born of Substance. It is also
true that I had Death for a nurse who fed me on the blood
drawn from my own veins.

The Infinite: Life indeed subsists on Life, that she may
rear her children. Love, Joy, Happiness, and Trust are her
favorites. She also rears Suspicion, Hate, Sadness, and Pain,
and these groups drain each other's blood that Life herself
may endure.

Love and Joy enter as young man and woman, wreathed
in garlands of flowers. Love to Life.

Love: mother! how good it is to play with Joy in
the rose embowered gardens of Hope and Trust. The stars
shine with a most wonderful luster; the night is filled with
glory; the hills are clothed in loveliness, when seen from these
enchanted spots.

Enter Suspicion and Hate from the right, they glare at
Love and nudge one another.

Suspicion to Hate: There is work for us in that garden.

Hate: Yes indeed, those two may play for awhile in these
gardens but we must see to it that they do not learn to work
together.

Suspicion: For if Love and Joy make a partnership to
Labor, what becomes of you and I?

Life looks around, sees Suspicion and Hate at the door
but appears not to recognize them.

The Infinite (to Life) : Daughter, are these not your
children. Suspicion and Hate, in the presence of your more
favored children. Love and Joy?

Life (to The Infinite) : They are not my children, but
born to your eldest son, Necessity.

The Infinite: He is your husband.

Life: I know he is my husband, but he never was my
love. My love was and is Ideal; him I am denied, because
of Necessity. Necessity has a concubine, her name is Lust,
and out of that unholy union these two were born together
with Sadness and Pain. They dwell in my house only to
torment my children. These two are friends of Death the
Destroyer. (Death passes a door upstage.)

Suspicion to Hate: I will persuade Love to go with me
to the house of our mother Lust; that will leave Joy in the
hands of Death.

Hate: Agreed, that wall be perfect. 0! my brother you
are a genius.

Suspicion approaches Love, who has strayed a little space
from Joy.

Suspicion (to Love) : How handsome you are when adorned
with blossoms.

Love: Leave me. I know you not.

Suspicion: yes you do, I am your half brother. My
mother is our father's Sweetheart.

Love: Go away, my mother hates her.

Lust: Naturally. Your mother envies mine.

Love: Why should she envy her?

Lust: Because my mother knows many wonderful secrets
that Life would hide from you. My mother has the golden
key to the enchanted gardens of Rapture and Passion.

Love: And pray why should my mother want to hide
ought from me?

Suspicion: Because she is envious; she knows that if ever
you get acquainted with my mother, she will teach you to eat
the fruit of Power; to use the things that make you master
of men. You will learn the great mysteries of life, the perfume
of Passion, by the use of which you shall become a queen in
your own domain, equal to your mother. Life. You will see
Joy as he really is, a servant and nbt a sweetheart.

Love : I understand you not. I love my mother.

Suspicion: Your mother and mine love our common father.
We are to that extent brother and sister. Can you not see
why your mother is jealous?

Love: I suspect that what you say is true.

Suspicion: Let me prove it.

Love: Lead the way.

Suspicion: Follow me. (They exit to the left.)

Joy (to Life, excitedly) : Who is that fellow who went away
with Love?

Life: He is Suspicion, the friend of Death.

Hate laughs, as Death enters from behind The Infinite.
Lights go out for an instant, and Life and The Infinite are
seen alone.

Life: 0, why must I endure!

The Infinite: To bring forth Love and lose her; to bring
her forth again and again, until all the brood of Fear, Envy,
Hate, Suspicion and Death shall learn that though Love dies
a thousand deaths, yet she is immortal.

Page eighteen

Book Reviews

The Western Co

Reviews of Recent Books ^y "• ^"'"^^

"Day and Night Stories" by Algernon Blackwood.

Journeyings into the world of mysticism under the guidance of such
a master as Algernon Blackwood brings back the fairyland of childhood;
leads us ayain into the youth of the race. His latest volume of short
stories, "Day and Night Stories" maintains the high Blackwood standard
set by such classics as "The Centaur," "Julius Le Vallon." "The Extra
Day," "The Human Chord," "John Silence" and "The Wave."

Mr. Blackwood has the power to make real the "imreal." The "un-
real" is to most of something we don't understand. Radium was "unreal"
to Sir Isaac Newton. Wireless telegraphy and airplanes were "unreal*
half a century ago to the best scientific minds. The "real" is what we
understand (or think we comprehend). Algernon Blackwood is no mere
weaver of w^ild fantasies. If as a child you want the sheer flight of
imagination; if you want to explore the impossible: if you want to
renew the thrill of Kipling's masterly "Brushwood Boy" over and over
again; if you want to look into forbidden territory of the invisible
world — then read Blackwood, But there is far more than this in his
book.

"Day and Night Stories" covers a wide range. As in the score of
previous books from the pen of Mr. Blackwood, there runs through these
tales a definite philosophy. The author is a deep student. His word
painting is that of a master artist; his philosophy fine and clear; his
understanding almost uncanny. The fifteen tales take us into England,
America, Egypt, the Alps — but always into the heart of nature and into
the hearts of men. Mr. Blackwood is the skilled surgeon in both fields.
He has achieved the dream of Manfred and here we sense "the viewless
spisit of a lovely sound."

Return to the primitive harmony of man with his environment, un-
spoiled by the artificiality of cvilization, this is a part of the lesson we
learn. Place ourselves in harmony with the elemental forces of wind,
fire and water. The oneness of life is shown — the oneness of man and
the trees and flowers of the forest. The oneness of the present life
through the ages. Man's belief that he knows has kept him from learning.
The church betrayed its trust; the priest killed the conception of God
and substituted a garbled counterfit. Science rebelled against this counter-
fit and declared no God exeist; that there is no spiritual life possible.
Blackwood doesn't preach, but his stories do. He is one of the rare
prophets leading the race back into spirituality, peeping into the face of
God, forecasting the life in the fourth dimension and showing the pos-
sibilities just around the corner when man emerges from the fear that
has characterized religion for countless centuries, into the faith that
is to be the keynote of the future religions. We hear of faith and be-
lief in some of the older religions, but in practice it has been
a feeble note, while the clamor of fear has dominated. "Perfect love
castelh out all fear." Mr. Blackwood is showing the way into that
path of love. "The Initiation" depicts the finding of Beauty in the heart
of the primitive pines; the taking away of all fear of death in the wor-
ship of life, nature and beauty as revealed in their underlying unity.
"The Touch of Pan" is a beautiful idyllic excursion, and at the same lime
a scathing denunciation of the lives of the titled parasites and upon the
social standard which relegates real hving to a place of scorn. "The
Wings of Horus" forecasts the possibilities when man shall understand
his relation to the universe — and by faith take his place in harmony
with the elemental forces. "An Egyptian Hornet" is a fine portrait of
a moral coward, the product of the religion of yesterday. And so, all
of the stories — each individual and searching.

No one writer has done more for me in the way of combined enter-
tainment, intellectual orientation, understandmg and spiritual growth than
Algernon Blackwood. (E. P. Dutton & Co., New York.)

"Those Times and These" by Irvin S. Cobb.

Irvin S. Cobb is a master humorist — nothing of the depth of philos-
ophy of Mark Twain — but a close reader of human nature. I like
him because of his telling the truth about California. I like him because
of the abounding pathos and overflow of humor in most of his works;
for the high standard that prevails even in so much copy he turns out
at so many cents a word for the big magazines. I disagree with his
viewpoint on practically all public questions, national and international —
which doesn't bother him at ail (nor me).

Cobb is never better than in the tales of his old Kentucky home
where he was born and learned the newspaper game before going to
New York City to grow fat and famous. "Those Times and These" is
a collection of stories I can cheerfully recommend as the best ever,
for it introduces once more old Judge Priest,

Now, the Judge is an American character who will live. He belongs
to the Kentucky soil. We have learned to love the upright old fighter

and his companion, Sergeemt Jimmy Bagby. From lime to time during
the past few years Cobb has been opening the secret chambers of his
heart in love tales of the old home country. Judge priest has fussed
and hurried through many of them until like Cappy Ricks and Matt
Peasley, Letitia Carberry and her two spinster friends, and Billy Fortune,
he sells a magazine on sight if he is suspected of being in a story.

There are ten of "Cob's best" — how does that sound for a new brand
of Kentucky stogies? — in the collection. Ex -Fighting Billy; And There
Was Light; Mr. Fleshburg Gets Even; The Garb of Men; The Cure for
Lonesomeness ; The Family Tree ; Hark ! From the Tombs ; Cinnamon
Seed and Sandy Bottom; A Kiss for Kindness; Life Among the Abandoned
Farmers.

Cobb impresses me as belonging to the courtly days of the past
generation than to the generation merging into the future (humanism.
Be that as it may, no other writer can equal his telling of the survivors
of the period of the Civil War. (George H. Doran Co., New York.)

"Gone to Earth" by Mary Webb.

Mary Webb has a close understanding of the lives of people of the
countryside. She has a sympathy for these people whose lives are
centered in the soil, whose eventful periods reach a climax in crops;
whose fears, hopes and joys center in the clouds and sunshine as re-
lated to those crops ; whose chickens, flocks, and herds make up a great
part of the universe.

In "Gone to Earth" she lets flow her imagination, in much the same
vein shown in her previous novel, "The Golden Arrow." She shows a
developing power in her new book. Not all productions can be of the
mountain peak variety. We must live the greater part of our lives in
varying levels, across plains and through valleys and on sunny slopes
of the foothills. So, in literature, we cannot dwell ever among the
superb masters — a dwelling perpetually with the gods would not be good
for us — at least not just yet.

And so, while "Gone to Earth" is not one of the immortals, it has the
qualities that makes the good book — sympathy and understanding.
Human nature, with Its relief of quaint and spontanous humor are the
background for the passions of human living woven into the tale. (E.
P. Dutton & Co., New York.)

"The Definite Object" by Jeffrey Farnol.

Jeffrey Farnol is known to the readers of current fiction through
his previous novels, "Beltane the Smith," "The Broad Highway," "The
Amateur Gentleman," and "The Honorable Mr. 'Tawnish." He comes
before the public this summer with "The Definite Object; A Romance
of New York." A gratifying merit of Fr. Farnol's novels is that they
are stories for their ov^ti sake, not romances about which to hang
some moral or social question. The present story has not been published
serially, and comes fresh to the readers. The scene is laid principally
in that portion of New York known as Hell's Kitchen.

In the novel, Mr. Ravenlee, a young man just a little past the first
draft age, ennuied, bored and distracted because there is nothing in life
of further interest, because of the millions of dollars, automobiles, servants
and country and city homes. The champion heavyweight of the world
piloted his automobile and his butler was a work of art, the envy of
acquaintances.

With these accomplices, he accompanied a young burgler whom he
had apprehended in his New York residence, to Hell's Kitchen, where
a room was engaged of a good hearted woman of angular build. He
ventured poverty and went into the street as a peanut vender. Then
the "definite object" appeared in the person of the sister of the burglar.
The robber reformed after proper moral vicissitudes. The sister was a
beautiful girl, the idol of the heart of the leader of a desperate gang of
gunmen. What this prince of good fortune does under the circumstances
allows Mr. Farnol to introduce some entertaining and exciting chapters.
(Little, Brown & Co., Boston.)

"The Adventure of Death" by Dr. R. W. MacKenna.

"The Adventure of Death" is a valuable message, another envidence
of the passing of materialism, as a philosophy. When a Scotch M. D.
defends immortality it is time for the followers of materialism to do a
bit of thinking and scrap some of those ten-cent pamphlets from which
they learned their philosophy of life.

Dr. Robert W. MacKenna writes like a poet. Bill Hyatt says he
ought to write novels, so more people would be led into the joyland
of his beauteous expression. Of his earlier chapters, "The Great Adven-
ture," "The Fear of Death," "The Painlessness of Death," and "Euthan-

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Book Reviews

Page mueteen

a?ia" I shall make no comment, pertinent as are his suggestions. It
is in the closing part of the book I find most interest.

Here are treated the questions of what life gains from death, whether
death ends all, is man more than matter and survival of personality.
Death, says Dr. MacKenna, is the force that gives force and meaning
to hfe. Is man more than matter 1* Let us listen to a beautiful com-
parison :

"But let us imagine that our materialist is a musician, and let us set
him before a piano out of tune, with stiff keys and a half-a-dozen broken
wires, and without telling him of the crippled condition of the instru-
ment, let us ask him to play Beethoven's Moonlight 'Sonata. On such
an instrument that exquisite harmony would become a discord. The
player has all the necessary skill ; the score is before his eyes, and his
fiagers touch the keys at the right time. But the instrument is damaged;

a hammer falls where there is no wire to catch its blow and tremble
into music, and instead of a concord of sweet sound we have a chaotic
dissonance. The analogy is a permissable one, and when the disgusted
materialist rises from the instrument, we may point out to him that
just as he has been unable to extract harmony from the damaged piano,
so the mind cannot, or at least does not, play the harmony of life on
the keyboard of a diseased brain."

The brain Is placed on the defensive as a limitation of mind. It is
compared to the window which lets into the room of our being the
play of mind. The survival of individuality is also advocated. "Reason
can make but one answer, which is, that mind is also imperishable and
must persist." And "it persists as personality, with this essential dif-
ference, that it is freed from the trammels and limitations of the phytical
body . . ." (G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.)

With The Editors By b. Bobspa

Dr. G. Henri Bogart, of Shelbyville, Illinois, veteran writer, poet,
lecturer and editor, woke up the medical profession last month with a
widely published article on venereals in the United States army. Dr.
Bogart is a graduate of two medical schools, but didn't like the com-
mercialized guesswork and graft of the profession and so has devoted
himself to free lance lecture work and writing. His essay, "War, Morals,
Health — the Future," appeared in many of the leading medical journals
last month. Dr. George L. Servess, editor of the "Denver Medical Times,"
wrote: "Although I had completed the arrangement for the contents of
the August issue, I am sending the manuscript to the publishing house,
telling them to drop everything else out of the issue and run this article."

Dr. Bogart has given to the conservative world the knowledge that the
radical press has realized for a long time. He brings his personal in-
vestigations and long prefessional studies to bear in an authoritative con-
demnation that not even the "nice" respectables can overlook. Dr. Bogart
is on the staff of a score of medical journals and is doing much to humanize
the profession, being, like Dr. William J. Robinson, one of those "sane
radicals" who fail to see the "ethical" distinction that would make a
mystic priesthood of the medical profession.

* * *

Orientation is the crying need of today. We must face the future,
wherein lies new worlds in the throes of travail. But those new worlds
will spring from the seeds of the past. Let us turn occasionally in the
midst of the stream of new books to a consideration of those which
have already become classics.

What can be better for your spare hours than a thorough study of
C. Osborne Ward's "The Ancient Lowly?" ^^y not make these two
pregnant volumes more than a name? Here is "A History of the Ancient
Working People from the Earliest Known Period to the Adoption of
Christianity by Constantine." If you have read Simonds and Oneal on
American history, you have learned that this study involves the working
class and is something more than merely wars and battles. Ward will take
you back into the misty past and show you the history of your class
in the days when there were no beings on earth but priests and kings
of importance — to judge from the distorted "facts" we learned in college.
No capitalist house dared publish the original edition of this revolutionary
work, which in eight editions has carried the gospel of proletarian history.

There are a few minor details — noted by the publishers — in which later
investigations have developed a different conception of some social
phenomena. These in no wise disparage the general value of the author's
deductions, and the two volumes still stand one of the greatest monuments
of research into the true development of mankind.

You will find that Tom and Rena Mooney were not the first strike
leaders to get into trouble with the ruling classes for trying to help the
people; and your 'Spartacus to the Gladiators " will ring with a clarified
tone after a study of the "Ancient Lowly." What do you know about the
ten-year war in which Ennus marshalled an army of 200,000 soldiers
against the economic slavery of Rome? Historians have been silent on
such matters of the uprisings of the proletarian masses.

¥ ¥ V

Closely allied with "The Ancient Lowly" as a class document of virile
force is Dr. Lewis H. Morgan's "Ancient Society: or Researches in the
Line of Human Progress from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization."
Dr. Morgan is the author of a number of authoritative books and was
one of the prominent scientists of the nation.

Just as savagery and barbarism gave way to civilization, the last named
is now yielding to the dawn of humanism, socialism, or whatever name
future generations will term it. Standing on the verge of this new world,
it is Important to take a survey of the three preceding periods of man's
tens of thousands of years on earth.

Four main divisions are treated in this book: "Growth of Intelligence

Through the Inventions and Discoveries" ; "Growth of the Idea of Gov-
ernment"; "Growth of the Idea of the Family"; and "Growth of the
Idea of Property." The first division tells of the ethnical periods, arts
of subsistence, and the ratio of human progress. Then, following a
treatment of the organization of society upon the basis of sex. Dr. Mor-
gan tells of the development of the gens in the Indian tribes of America,
among the Aztecs, those of Rome and Greece, together with the gentes of
other tribes of the human family. Among the interesting discussions are
the growth of various confederacies in eastern and western hemisphere,
the Grecian Phratry, the institution of political society, and the change of
descent from the female to the male line.

This brings us to the consideration of the ancient family, the consan-
guine family, the punaluan family, the Syndyasmlan and the patriarchal
families, the monogomanian family, sequence of institutions connected
with the family. The books conclude with the subject of the three rules
of property Inheritance.

* * *

As the Jewish bible is simply the collection by a wrangling committee at
the dictate of Constantine, so there has grown up a radical "bible," though
it has not been crystallzed into a single set and made a fetish of. So,
to my list of classics I would add a note concerning a more recent pro-
duction than the above.

The elected "representatives" of the people have ceased to function.
The courts and the dictators rule today. So it is interesting to know the
Inside history of our ruling tribunals. Charles Beard in "The Economic
Interpretation of the Constitution" told of the origin of the sacred bull of
the supposed basic law of the land. The tale of the setting aside even
of this supposed bulwark of liberty by the courts is told by Gustavus
Myers in his "History of the Supreme Court of the United States." He
is the author of "History of Great American Fortunes," "History of Tam-
many Hall." and "History of Public Franchises in New York City."

"Palpably a dominant class," w'riles the author, "must have some su-
preme institution through which it can express its consecutive demands
and enforces its will, whether that institution be a king, a parliament, a
congress, a court, or an army. In the United States, the one all-potent
institution automatically responding to these demands and enforcing them
has been the Supreme Court of the United States. Vested with absolute
and unappealable power, it has been able, with a marvellously adaptable
flexibility, to transmute that will not merely into law but into action.
Hence, the narrative of that court inevitably becomes a history of the
origin and progress of capitalism and correspondingly of the forces in
society antagonistic to the capitalistic order."

The book is no attack on persons connected with the supreme bench.
It deals with fundamental causes, the working out of forces of which the
jurists were often unconscious tools, the product of their blighting en-
vironment. Neither is any space given to theories or to hypothetical cases
and arguments. It is based entirely on historic facts, the verification of
which can be made by investigation of public records. No denials have
been successfully launched against the book. The facts are brought down
to the year 1912. While some important developments have transpired
since then, they are only an extension of the powers and activities out-
lined by Dr. Myers.

In the name of comrades, I extend to Comrade Ethel Lynn the love of
fellowship in (his sad summer which marks the death of her devoted
husband. "Dan" was described in Dr. Lynn's late book, "The Adventures
of a Woman Hobo." Each reader felt a personal acquaintance with this
fine comrade in the discrlptions of his devotion to his wife as written by
her. It IS sad that just when the book is winning a wide national
popularity the companion of the hardships and joys it describes should
be removed from us through death.

Page twenty

Propaganda

The Western Comrade

Terms of Peace

By Ida Crouch-Hazlett

HEN shall we be ready for peace? Will it be next

Wweek or next year? Will it be when the angel of
death is seated at every fireside and the earth is
desolated of the priceless achievements of civiliza-
tion ?

Now is the accepted time. The evidence is apparent that
the German aggression is not likely to succeed. The results
obtained by Great Britain are meager. France has not many
men left. New Zealand is exhausted. The British working
class is on the point of rebellion. Canada is mutinous; and
the German defensive is practically untouched. Russia can-
not be depended on even Vkith the pistols of the allies at
her heart. She has the sweet wine of Brotherhood in her
veins, and even her Battalion of Death cannot produce a
will for slaughter when there is none. The United States
has the entire experience of war to learn before she can be
counted on.

"No indemnities and no annexations." No indemnities
could repair the colossal devastation; no indemnities could
be squeezed out of the weaker antagonists, and, if the war
continue much longer, the protagonists will be "bled white."
Indemnities would be a fruitful irritant for future wars, and
the question of their division would be extremely difficult
to solve without friction.

Each nation should have the freedom to expand without
intervention from any other nation. The State should not
be a collection and insurance agency for foreign investors,
but its sovereignty should end with its boundaries. Investors
should take risks on their own initiative, and should be strip-
ped of the support of the home government, with no army
and navy to back them.

Disputed territories should be allowed to vote on their
boundaries and allegiance. This would give a United Poland,
heretofore ravished by Austria, Germany and Russia. Italy's
desire for predominance in the Adriatic brings it into conflict
with the Slav seeking the sea, and the Italian ports have
become more Slavish than Italian. Alsace-Lorraine is more
German than French.

The open door, free trade and freedom of the seas would
now largely settle the problems of ports like Trieste, Fiume,
Constantinople, Casablanca, Agadiz, Koweit and Antwerp,

and would give Russia, Germany, Servia and Austria a chance
to get to the sea.

The longer the war is continued the more disastrously
the infection spreads with no possible outcome but exhaus-
tion to the status quo. The Socialist sees in this inevitable
exhaustion the final collapse of the capitalist form of pro-
duction from inherent defects of its financial mechanism,
international bankruptcy and confiscatory taxes, and, tremend-
ously stimulated by the war, exportation of products, both
as capital and merchandise.

An international syndicate for the development of the back-
ward ports of the globe, and a common tribunal to which ai!
concession seekers and investors will submit their claims means
an escape from armament. This means the establishment of
democracies of all people in all advanced powers as the only
real method with which to encourage and assist backward
nations.

The conflict of classes must be stopped so as not to em-
broil whole peoples for the advantage of any class.

All factories of war supplies and munitions should be owned
by the governments, and not operated for private profit. The
privileged classes would lose their enormous profits by peace.
Armaments should be abandoned to rebuild industries.

New democratic standards for the world must take the
place of the clash of classes. The disarmament of all nations
except for the purpose of actual defense would strike at
privileges, profits, and immunities. No permanent peace is
possible until we have democracy. Junkerism and democracy
cannot unite on a peace program.

All strategic places should be internationalized; all routes
over which international traffic flows by sea or land; all ports,
straights, seas, canals, and international railroad lines, as
Gibraltar, Bosporus, Suez, and the Bagdad railway.

All the agencies of foreign relations should be democrat-
ized and an end put to secret diplomacy.

The making of war should be lodged with the people.
Armies and navies should be democratized and military caste
destroyed; and so long as defense must be provided for, a
democratic, citizen army should be the type, an industrial
army that would be employed in public undertakings.

The cause of labor and peace and democracy are one.

Prohibition and Discontent

From "The Public'^

HE New York Tribune's staff correspondent at Spokane

T reports a new argument against prohibition by the
lumber men and other large employers of the North-

west, recently gone. Labor unrest, they complain,

is due to the lack of drinking places where men can forget
their troubles, to wake up the next morning with no money
in their clothes and the necessity of going back to the boss
to beg for a job. The correspondent puts it thus:

"The men from the camps come to town with so much
money and it lasts so long. . . They have the new spirit,
a new independence. The I. W. W. leaders say frankly that
these sober, well-to-do men are far better material for them
to work on than the blear-eyed, wiskey-soaked gangs that used
to loaf around the I. W. W. halls for shelter. They have an
interest in economic questions, and they like to hear serious,
even if revolutionary, speeches. They begin to think. Well
dressed, well groomed, grasping in their soberness of life, they
begin to consider that the orator argues well when he tells
them that they have as good brains and more brawn than their

employers, and that it is merely because they permit the
traditional masters to 'stack the cards' on them that they
do not own the industries they work."

If the I. W. W. is doing this for the lumber workers and the
construction workers of the Northwest, it is entitled to our
gratitude. Any fallacy in the I. W. W. doctrine will be found
sooner or later by men thus awakened to serious thought,
and they will either leave that organization for one that offers
soberer promise or they will change it from within. The
testimony of these employers, paraphrased by the correspond-
ent, confirms that of the regular trade union leaders of
Colorado and Washington that prohibition has been a blessing
to the labor movement. The best of our labor leaders are
rapidly coming to a realization that the old political alliance
between booze and labor has been an unmitigated obstacle,
that labor has been jobbed again and again by the liquor
interests to whom it turned in its times of desperate need.
Mr. Gompers' steadfast opposition to prohibition will not much
longer represent the prevailing attitude in labor circles.

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Page twenty-one

News and Views in Agriculture

Hoover says:

"The savings of the American consumer should be made by the exclusion
of speculative profits from the handling of foodstuffs, and not by a
sacrifice on the part of the producer."

"This is no time for the illegitimate food manipulator. Hoarding and
speculation are rife."

"Those producers who fail to sell their crops at a reasonable price
should use them at home."

"There is no occasion for food panic in this country. There is no
justification for outrageous prices."

"What we hope to do under the food survey and administration legis-
lation is to stabilize prices by various devices, and to regulate the pro-
fits and speculation out of handling commodities."

Weeds are Water Wasters

Few people appreciate how thoroughly weeds rob the soil of its
surplus moisture. An experiment recently conducted at the Nebraska
Experiment Station shows that whereas a certain area of com abstracts
300 pounds of water from the soil, a similar area of sunflowers robs the
soil of 1200 pounds of water. It can be seen from this what a waste
of soil water occurs when rank-growing weeds are allowed to survive.

Illustrative of what a lack of soil moisture will accomplish in the way
of plant growth, another Nebraska field trial is of interest. One acre
plot of com that was never cultivated or worked yielded twenty-two
bushels of corn, as compared with a like area that was thoroughly cul-
tivated and produced seventy-eight bushels of com. — Country Gentleman.

Manure and Fertilizers

A ton of stable manure usually contains 10 pounds nitrogen, 10 pounds
potash, and 5 pounds phosphoric acid, making a total of 25 pounds of
plant food.

The excess of nitrogen in hog and sheep manure, is greater than
in horse manure. In cow manure the excess is a little less than it is
in horse manure. In the four manures, horse, cow, hog, and sheep, the
average excess of nitrogen is about the same that it is in horse manure,
or about three times as much as it should be for com. — Co-operator's
Herald.

Cows and Calves

Foul in the foot in cattle is caused by standing in mud, and may be-
come serious. To cure, cleanse the space between the toes by drawing
a small rop through, then apply sulphate of zinc, one drachm in half
pint of water.

Regularity in feeding and milking the cows is very important. Both
should be done at regular set hours each day, as cows quickly form
habits, and any delay is apt to cause worriment, which will mean a
lessening of the product in the pail.

It is a mistake to cut out the morning milking during the time of
scant production, as some farmers are often known to do.

Do not fail to have your herd examined at least once a year by a
skillful vetenarian to see if tuberculosis has gained an entrance. Promptly
remove any that respond to the test. Never under any circumstances
add an animal until it has passed a rigid examination.

It is impossible to say just how soon in her life a heifer should be
bred. The distinctive, specialized dairy breeds may be bred earher than
the large strains. Some heifers at sixteen months are as fully developed
as others at twenty-four. Therefore the experienced breeder will breed
according to development.

A good liniment for all kinds of swelling on dairy cows, as well as
on all other farm animals, is made by mixing equal parts of turpentine,
sweet oil and camphor. Apply liberally and frequently to the swollen
parts.

Good milch cows do not generally carry a large amount of flesh. It
it impossible to produce milk and flesh at the same time. But they
need good feed just the same.

To get the best flow of milk during the winter, cows should be bred
so as to come in the fall. They begin to fall off in milk in spring, but
the grass will stimulate a larger flow, and they will keep it np until
time to be dried off for the next calf. In this way the non-milking period
will be at a time of the year when butter and milk are the lowest. — United
States Dept. Agriculture.

Drying Vegetables

Vegetables can be preserved for future use by drying. One point to
keep in mind is that the drying should be fairly rapid so that there will
be no chance for the vegetables to spoil before sufficiently dry. Another
point is that the vegetables, if fle.=hy, should be cut into slices J/g to '/^
inch thick. There are several ways of drying: sun heat, artificial heat
and air blast. There are several makes of driers on the market. The
trays on which the drying is done, should have unpainted screen or wooden
slat bottoms. The open bottom allows better circulation of air than can be
secured in a pan. Several of these trays can be placed, one above another
and when set over a stove the heat will pass through the trays and bring
about quite rapid drying. The electric fan, when available, can be used
to force a current of air through the vegetables. In drying the vegetables
they should not be dried until crisp but to a leathery consistency. It
takes experience to tell just what degree of dryness is best. — Farmers'
Bulletin No. 841.

World's Greatest Food Crisis

Sixty million men have been withdrawn from the fields of labor in
Europe. Reserve stocks of meal, grain, butter, eggs, canned food, have
been and are today falling below the danger level.

The Allies have bought for FUTURE delivery 300,000,000 bushels of
1917 wheat. Unless our government intervenes, wheat may sell at over
four dollars a bushel.

Any\vay, ninety-nine million out of our population of about one-hun-
dred million positively refuse to admit any emergency.

So it is the duty of the American farmer to prevent a possible world-
starvation. Think it over, and begin to act. — The Western Empire.

Spineless Cactus as Feed

A trial with spineless cactus as a feed for milch cows conducted in the
University dairy herd showed it to have no more merit than suggested
by its chemical composition (92.8 per cent moisture, 0.3 per cent diges-
tible protein, 3.9 per cent digestible carbohydrates and fat). It proved
unpalatable to our cows, but undoubtedly in some cases it has been eaten
by cows and hogs with a relish and in considerable amounts. As 100
pounds contain less than eight pounds of dry matter, and but slightly over
four pounds digestible nutrients, it can only be looked upon as an ap-
petizer to slock that have become accustomed to it, and cannot be con-
sidered a substitute for either roots or silage, as is sometimes claimed. —
Berkeley College of Agriculture.

The A 1 f a 1 f

W

1

Alfalfa is California's most valuable forage crop. It is the backbone of
the hvestock industry of the state, and its protection from destructive
pests is therefore of prime importance.

The alfalfa weevil (Phytonomus posticus Gyll.) is the most destructive
pest of alfalfa occurring in the United States, and against it California
maintains a strict quarantine. This insect occurs at the present time in
Utah, the southeastern corner of Idaho and the southwestern corner of
Wyoming. It w^s introduced in some unknown way from the old world,
where it is found throughout the Mediterranean region. It was first dis-
covered in this country near Salt Lake City, Utcih, about thirteen years
ago, where it covered only a few acres of territory. Since then it has
spread with considerable rapidity, although it has not made any extended
jumps in its distribution. — State Commissioner of Horticulture.

Bristles

Young pigs should not run in heavy pastures when the dew is on the
grass. The best cross to produce pigs for bacon is one between pure-bred
boars and sows of the same breed. To speak plainly, crossing of breeds
is rather risky except in the hands of one who thoroughly understands
breeding, and such men do not practise it to any extent.

Many newly-bom pigs die immediately after delivery just for lack of
a helping hand. If a sow farrows nine pigs and loses three, a loss of
one-third is experienced; but few look at the matter in that light. They
generally consider themselves fortunate that the other two-thirds of the
litter pulled through. About three weeks before farrowing, pregnant sows
may be given a ration consisting of mne parts of rolled barley and one
part of tankage, or three pounds of skim-milk to one pound of the barley.
This method will insure strong, lusty, active new-bom pigs. — Farm
Journal.

Page twenty-two

The Western Comrad

ENTER THE NEW CONTEST NOW!

You can earn your way to Llano
by taking subscriptions to the

Llano Publications

Write today for full information about the second

Grand Membership
Circulation Contest

which offers valuable premiums.

CLOSES DECEMBER 31, 1917

EWALD SANDNER
Who won a membership in the first contest

Reduced Freight Rates

on Shipments of

Household Goods

from all Eastern points

to California

Members of tke Llano del Rio Colony will find it especially
advantageoDs to make their shipments through the

JUDSON Freight Forwarding Co.

443 Marquette bldg, Chicago; 324 Whitehall bldg, New York;
640 Old South bldg, Boston; 435 Oliver bldg. Pittsburg; 1537
Boatmen's Bank bldg, St. Louis; 518 Central bldg, Los Angeles;
855 Monadnock bldg. San Francisco. WRITE NEAREST OFFICE.

Can You Reduce Weight?

Information regarding my Obesity Treatments is contained in a
httle booklet and consists of fully explained systems of dieting, exer-
cises, bathing, manipulative movements, and various other essentials
to effect the desired results. Persistency in this common sense and
proved treatment will surely bring results in your case as it has In
others. No drugs are used; it Is a natural and beneficial way of
reducing flesh. It gives full details for dally conduct. In sending
remittances, state what portion you particularly wish to have re-
duced and emphasis will be given as to what treatments will prove
most beneficial.
Full $5.00 Treatments, $3.00 Mrs. C. M. Williams, Uano, Cal.

"The Truth About

The Medical Profession"

By John A. Bevan, M, D.

Columbia University
(Inventor of the CEsophagoscope)

The result of clinical and pathological
researches at Guy's Hospital, London, and
the Bellevue Hospital, New York.

BENEDICT LUST, N. D., D. 0., D. C. M. D., writes: "The
book is splendid and will help to enlighten many skeptics who
still believe in medical superstition."

Prof. DAVID STARR JORDAN, M. D., writes: "I have
looked over the book called 'The Truth About the Medical
Profession.' There are a great many things that are forceful
and truthfully said."

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW writes: "There are some quite
interesting and important thmgs in the book."

Cloth Bound, Postpaid
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$1.00
.50

Llano Publications, Llano, Calif.

The Western Co

d e

Page twenty-three

Co-operative Banking connnued w pa^e .6 ^^^^j^^ Promised For Early Issues

and co-op)erative banking is one of them.

The failure of the government monetary system to provide
the people with a volume of money equal to the needs of
exchange has forced them at times to resort to various
devices to supply the unprovided need. The banks themselves
in the past as well as at the present time have been forced to
provide temporary relief by issuing clearing-house certificates,
certified checks, bills of exchange, federal reserve notes, and
other forms of commercial paper during the frequent recurring
financial crises that are a necessary evil of the prevailing
monetary system.

To the private capitalistic banks the necessity for such
action arises only when they suddenly need to mediumize their
securities, that is, reduce them to an exchangeable medium
form. To the people such necessity is chronic. On account
of the miserably inadequate volume of government money
they are continually forced to capitalize their" securities, to
mediumize their wealth or sacrifice it by buying with it a
scarce and hoarded legal tender for which there is an enor-
mous over - demand and a corresponding under - supply.
Through the federal reserve scheme therefore, the banks are
only doing what the government ought to do. But by that
plan the associated bankers of the country have successfully
.siezed the money-issuing function of government and control it
absolutely for themselves. Notwithstanding the scheme may
be auithorized by the Congress, although it may be called a
"federal reserve bank" and however large its capitalization
may be, yet the establishment of such an institution is usurpa-
tion of a government function by private individuals which can
have but one result — the progressive enslavement of labor to
private capital-ownership. The issuing of a mediiftn of ex-
change is a government function. To demand that the
government go out of the bank business by ceasing to be the
issuer of money and turn the function of mediumizing values
over to the private banker, is like demanding time to roll
backwards. But an essential social function that is under-
taken by the government and inadequately performed, must
in self-defense be supplemented by the people themselves or
they must suffer until the government sees proper to do its
work well.

The beneficiaries of the government monetary system, the
bankers, are too highly pleased with the inadequate perform-
ance of this function to allow it to be done any differently.
The people have suffered long enough patiently waiting for
capitalistic experts to give them relief. The time is near at
hand when they will be forced to supplement this government
by establishing a system of banking and exchange that vnW
promote industrial production instead of throttling it, one
which will develop the country's resources for all the people
instead of artificially centralizing them into the private for-
tunes of a few.

"Scraps of Paper."

'Scraps of Paper" is one of the most realistic bits of source material
that has been given to the public. It consists of nearly a score of repro-
ductions of the German proclamations in Belgium and France. These
bulletins, of which we have read so much, are reproduced photographically
in all the original colors of blues, greens, yellows, while, orange and red.
We seem to be traveling through the very war zone itself as we look upon
these martial posters. A full page is given to each poster, with the trans-
lation and a historical note given on the opposite page. (English version
brought out in America at 25c. New York. George H. Doran Company.)

ARTICLES of general interest which v«ll appear in early
issues of the WESTERN COMRADE are now being

prepared.

Mr. H. G. Teigan, connected w^ith the national headquarters
of the National Nonpartican League of St. Paul, Minnesota,
has promised a series of three articles on this remarkable
farmer's organization. Each will consist of between 2500
and 3000 words, or about two pages of the WESTERN COM-
RADE.

Perhaps only a minority of the readers of this magazine
have any knowledge of what his virile, vital, growing, thriv-
ing organization is achieving. It has spread througout the
wheat belt of the northwest and' is traveling southward. It
controls governors and legislatures and has a representative
in Congress. It is economic and political in its functions.
Controlling the governing forces is but a means to an end
with these farmers. Their platform calls for government own-
ership of elevators, etc. It has gained for its members a more
stable market for products and higher prices. It has organ-
ized purchasing facilities that secure necessities at lowered
figures.

In his series of articles Mr. Teigan will give a brief his-
tory of the achievements of this extraordinary organization.
With no claim of being Socialistic, it is securing the very
things that Socialists have talked, worked, and voted for.
Therefore it is of interest to every person who believes in
co-operation, and it should convert those who do not. We
believe Mr. Teigan's articles vriil be eagerly read.

Universal Brotherhood

' I 'rilS is the name a group of Socialists chose for an organ-

■■• ization which would be of interest to Socialists. It was

started in Fresno, California, in 1915. It, too, is a vital

organization which interests all who believe in co-operation.

Just now certain details are being perfected, but shortly
the WESTERN COMRADE expects to begin a series of four
or more articles which vvqil tell of the ideals, grovrth, plans,
and achievements of this auxiliary to the movement for
emancipation from capitalism.

The prime purpose of the Universal Brotherhood is to
secure the benefits of co-operation vrithout requiring the pur-
chaser to finance a store. How it has been achieved sug-
gests an easy solution to the problems that have hindred,
ofttimes, the grovrth of co-operatives in this country.

But there are ideals connected with the Universal Brother-
hood; it is more than a mere purchasing society. The
Universal Brotherhood now has headquarters at 3058 Iowa
Avenue, Fresno, California. It is attracting the close atten-
tion of radical and progressive people of Central California.

No definite date has been set for the beginning of this
series, but it will probably commence within the next two
or three issues.

o

About Manuscripts

Only typewritten material or that written with ink ^viIl be given
consideration.

Please put your name and address and date on manuscripts.

The WESTERN COMRADE does not pay cash at present.

Please state if you desire return of manuscript.

The COMRADE is always glad to consider contributions, but nothing
of a controversial nature will be printed.

THE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF SOCIAL ECONOMY.

Three Correspondence Courses of Study

Organized in 1 900. Students in All English Speaking Countries

LESSONS PREPARED AND TAUGHT BY

Walter Thomas Mills

;Any of these Courses can be taken by a single individual or in classes. Work can begin at any time
and can be completed as quickly as anyone is able, or the time may be extended as may be necessary.

FINELY ENGRAVED CERTIFICATES are given to those who satisfactorily complete the work in any of these courses.

Here are I i-— ten lessons in the study of socialism.

, ^ \ II.— TEN LESSONS IN THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING.

the Lourses ( m.— ten lessons in the correct and effective use of the English language.

THE ten lessons IN SOCIALISM

Lesson I. — ^The Evolalion of Capitalism.

Lesson IL — The Evolntion of Socialism.

Lesson III. — Scientific Socialism.

Lesson IV. — The Failure of Capitalism — The Coming of Socialism.

Lesson V. — Trades Unions and Socialism.

Lesson VI. — The Farmers and Socialism.

Lesson VII. — The Middle Class Workers and Socialism.

Lesson VIII. — Religion, Education and Socialism.

Lesson IX. — Political Parties and Socialism.

Lesson X. — How to Work for Socialism.

Each of ihe ten lessons which have been especially prepared by Mr.
Mills, the author of "The Struggle for Existence," gives special direc-
tions for the study of some one topic as given in the above schedule.
Each lesson gives a summary of the subject matter to be studied with
special references to all the paragraphs in the text book bearing upon
that topic and designating those to be read only, as well as those to be
carefully studied. Each lesson in the course is followed by a list of
test questions, the answers to which are written up as studied and for-
warded to Mr. Mills for correction, approval or recommendations for
further study, together with answers to any special questions asked.

THE TEN LESSONS IN THE CORRECT AND
EFFECTIVE USE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Lesson I. — The Building and the Mastery of Words.
Lesson IL — The Classes of Words.

REMEMBER: — If you wish lo understand the labor question, to deal with the high cost of living, to understand the rise of militarism and the
way of escape, to fight effectively for the young, the disabled and the aged, in short, if you wish to be a good and an effective Socialist, begin at
once the study of these lessons in Socialism. If you wish to have a voice as clear and musical as a bell, so that people will listen to you just for the
music of your voice, to be heard distinctly by the largest crowds, to have a throat of steel that will never fail you, to have a great fund of fresh
and interesting information, to be able to think at your best on your feet and before a crowd, to be an effective salesman in offering goods or in
presenting ideas, to speak without notes and never forget, to address a throng as though you were speaking to a single friend and to become your-
self the incarnation of the message you take to others, then take these ten lessons in the Art of Public Speaking.

If you want to write for the press, not for the waste basket, to be understood, not to be laughed at, to write letters that bring replies, to serve
on committees, write resolutions or party platforms, to gather the greatest fund of information, to write a story that will read when printed as it
sounds when told, to recover from the brogue or the broken forms of foreign speech or of untrained utterance, then take these lessons in ihe study
of the English language.

q THESE LESSONS WILL BE WORTH YOUR WHILE. The following well-known speakers, writers and organizers were once students of Mr. Mills:
George R. Kirkpatrick, Anna Maley, Fred. D. Warren, Kate O'Hare, Frank O'Hare, Guy Lockwood, Mrs. Lockwood, Oscar Ameringer, Phil Gallery,
J. W. Slayton, Gertrude Breslau Fuller. 0. S. Wilson, Judge Groesbeck, Geo. W. Downing, Agnes Downing, John M. Work, Mrs. A. M. Salyer, Geo.
H. Turner, George D. Brewer, J. E. Snyder, George Scott, Mrs. Bradford, Walter and Rose Walker, Anna Strunsky Walling, T. E. Latimer, Caroline
Lowe, James O'Neal, W. C. Benton, J. L. Filts, J. L. Engdahl, Dr. Nina E. Wood.

Lesson III. — The Relation of Words lo Each Other.

Lesson IV. — The Building of an English Sentence.

Lesson V. — The Finishing Work on an English Sentence.

Lesson VI. — The Forms of Speaking and Writing.

Lesson VII. — The Telling of a Story and the Explaining of a Situation

Lesson VIII. — The Building of an Argument.

Lesson IX. — Effective Correspondence.

Lesson X. — Writing for Publication.

These lessons consist of ten pamphlets, each complete in itself and
containing all the material necessary for a student's work. Each lesson
is followed with test questions and the manner of procedure in doing
the work, the same as above.

TEN LESSONS IN THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

Lesson I.^ — The Training of the Voice.
Lesson II. — Gathering the Speaker's Materials.

III. — Constructing the Argument.

IV. — The Delivery of a Speech.

V. — Adornment and Power in Public Address.

VI. — The Speech and the Occasion.

VII. — Errors in Speech.

VIII. — Controversial Speech.

IX. — How to Manage a Crowd.

X. — The Personal Qualities of an Orator.
lessons, as in the course of English, each lesson is complete

Lesson
Lesson
Lesson
Lesson
Lesson
Lesson
Lesson
Lesson
In these

in itself and no text book will be required, and the manner of proceed-
ure will be the same.

TERMS: The Course of Lessons in Socialism, including a paper-
bound copy of "The Struggle for Existence" by Walter Thomas Mills,
free, $5.00 for a single student; in classes of five or more, $3.00 each;
in classes of ten or more with text book free to each student in any
case, $2.50 each; or the course free lo anyone ordering ten copies of
the cloth-bound edition of "The Struggle for Existence" at $1.50 each
(regular price $2.50) ; or ten copies of "Democracy or Despotism" by
Walter Thomas Mills, regular price $1.25 each, to one address.

The Courses in the study of English and in the Art of Public Speak-
ing are $10.00 each for single students; in classes of five $7.50 each;

in classes of ten or more $6.00 each; or either Course for a single
student free to anyone ordering fifteen cloth-bound copies of "The
Struggle for Existence" at $1.50 (regular price $2.50) ; or fifteen copies
of "Democracy or Despotism" at $1.00 each (regular price $1.25) to
one address, purchasers paying the freight.

^ Now is the time to get ready for the \vinter's work. You can in-
vest in nothing that will pay so large a return as when you invest in
yourself. You can earn these courses getting up clubs for the books.
You can greatly reduce the expense and add to the pleasure and profit
of the work by getting up classes in any of these Courses.

ADDRESS ALL COMMUNICATIONS, always mentioning that you saw this ad in THE WESTERN COMRADE, to .

The International School of Social Economy

R. R. No. i. Box 15, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA.

C-^c-K

Beginning In
This Number

Com/HxcCe

The Revolution in North
Dakota By h. g. Teig^

Current Problems

By Walter Thomas Mills

Contents

rage
EDITORIALS by Job Harriman 3

THE DEVIL'S PUNCH BOWL 9

THE NEW SOCIALISM by Alec Watkins 12

SOCIALISM IN JAPAN by S. Katayama 19

A NICE GIRL (Story) by Mary Alien 20

Llano's Louisiana
Purchase

EFFICIENCY IN RELIGION by Myrtle
Manana 22

THE CO-OPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH by
Clinton Bancroft 24

Other Features Are:

"Was Schmidt Guilty?"; Successful Cal-
ifornia Co-operatives; Co-operation the World
Over; News and Views in Agriculture; Book
Reviews, etc.

Price Ten Cents

THE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF SOCIAL ECONOMY.

Three Correspondence Courses of Study

Organized in 1 900. Students in All English Speaking Countries

LESSONS PREPARED AND TAUGHT BY

Walter Thomas Mills

;Any of these Courses can be taken by a single individual or in classes. Work can begin at any time
^^^ and can be completed as quickly as anyone is able, or the time may be extended as may be necessary.

FINELY ENGRAVED CERTIFICATES are given to those who satisfactorily complete the work in any of these courses.

Here are
the Courses

I.— TEN LESSONS IN THE STUDY OF SOCIALISM.

II.— TEN LESSONS IN THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING.

III.— TEN LESSONS IN THE CORRECT AND EFFECTIVE USE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

Lesson III. — The Relation of Words to Each Other.

Lesson IV. — The Building of an English Sentence.

Lesson V. — The Finishing Work on an English Sentence.

Lesson VI. — The Forms of Speaking and Writing.

Lesson VII. — The Telling of a Story and the Explaining of a Situation

Lesson VIII. — The Building of an Argument.

Lesson IX. — Effective Correspondence.

Lesson X. — Writing for Publication.

These lessons consist of ten pamphlets, each complete in itself and
containing all the material necessary for a student's work. Each lesson
is followed with test questions and the manner of procedure in doing
the work, the same as above.

TEN LESSONS IN THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

THE TEN LESSONS IN SOCIALISM

Lesson I. — The Evolution of Capitalism.

Lesson II. — The Evolution of Socialism.

Lesson III. — Scientific Socialism.

Lesson IV. — The Failure of Capitalism — The Commg of Socialism.

Lesson V. — Trades Unions and Socialism.

Lesson VI. — The Farmers and Socialism.

Lesson VII. — The Middle Class Workers and Socialism.

Lesson VIII. — Religion, Education and Socialism.

Lesson IX. — Political Parties and Socialism.

Lesson X. — How to Work for Socialism.

Each of the ten lessons which have been especially prepared by Mi.
Mills, the author of "The Struggle for Existence," gives special direc-
tions for the study of some one topic as given in the above schedule.
Each lesson gives a summary of the subject matter to be studied with
special references to all the paragraphs in the text book bearing upon
that topic and designating those to be read only, as well as those to be
carefully studied. Each lesson in the course is followed by a list of
test questions, the answers to which are written up as studied and for-
warded to Mr. Mills for correction, approval or recommendations for
further study, together vvnth answers to any special questions asked.

THE TEN LESSONS IN THE CORRECT AND
EFFECTIVE USE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Lesson I. — The Building and the Mastery of Words.
Lesson IL — The Classes of Words.

REMEMBER: — If you wish to understand the labor question, to deal with the high cost of living, to understand the rise of militarism and the
way of escape, to fight effectively for the young, the disabled and the aged, in short, if you wish to be a good and an effective Socialist, begin at
once the study of these lessons in Socialism. If you wish to have a voice as clear and musical as a bell, so that people will listen to you just for the
music of your voice, to be heard distinctly by the largest crowds, to have a throat of steel that will never fail you, to have a great fund of fresh
and interesting information, to be able to think at your best on your feet and before a crowd, to be an effective salesman in offering goods or in
presenting ideas, to speak without notes and never forget, to addreso a throng as though you were speaking to a single friend and to become your-
self the incarnation of the message you take to others, then take these ten lessons in the Art of Public Speaking.

If you want to write for the press, not for the waste basket, to be understood, not to be laughed at, to write letters that bring replies, to serve
on committees, write resolutions or party platforms, to gather the greatest fund of information, to write a story that will read when printed as it
sounds when told, to recover from the brogue or the broken forms of foreign speech or of untrained utterance, then take these lessons in the study
of the English language.

fl THESE LESSONS WILL BE WORTH YOUR WHILE. The following well-known speakers, writers and organizers were once students of Mr. Mills:
George R. Kirkpatrick, Anna Maley, Fred. D. Warren, Kate O'Hare, Frank O'Hare, Guy Lockwood, Mrs. Lockwood, Oscar Ameringer, Phil Callery,
J. W. Slayton, Gertrude Breslau Fuller, 0. S. Wilson, Judge Groesbeck, Geo. W. Downing, Agnes Downing, John M. Work, Mrs, A. M. Salyer, Geo.

Lesson
Lesson
Lesson
Lesson
Lesson
Lesson
Lesson
Lesson
Lesson
Lesson
In these

I. — The Training of the Voice.

IL — Gathering the Speaker's Materials.

III. — Constructing the Argument.

IV. — The Delivery of a Speech.

V. — Adornment and Power in Public Address.

VI. — The Speech and the Occasion.

VII. — Errors in Speech.

VIII. — Controversial Speech.

IX. — How to Manage a Crowd.

X. — The Personal Qualities of an Orator.

as in the course of English, each lesson is complete

in itself and no text book v^nll be required, and the manner of proceed-
"ure will be the samt

H. Turner, George D. Brewer, J. E. Snyder, George Scott, Mrs. Bradford,
Lowe, James O'Neal, W. C. Benton, J. L. Fitts, J. L. Engdahl, Dr. Nina

TERMS: The Course of Lessons in Socialism, including a paper-
bound copy of "The Struggle for Existence" by Walter Thomas Mills,
free, $5.00 for a single student; in classes of five or more, $3.00 each;
in classes of ten or more with text book free to each student in any
case, $2.50 each; or the course free to anyone ordering ten copies of
the cloth-bound edition of "The Struggle for Existence" at $1.50 each
(regular price $2.50) ; or ten copies of "Democracy or Despotism" by
Walter Thomas Mills, regular price $1.25 each, to one address.

The Courses in the study of English and in the Art of Public Speak-
ing are $10.00 each for single students; in classes of five $7.50 each;

Walter and Rose Walker, Anna Strunsky Walling, T. E. Latimer, Caroline
E. Wood.

in classes of ten or more $6.00 each; or either Course for a single
student free to anyone ordering fifteen cloth-bound copies of "The
Struggle for Existence" at $!.50 (regular price $2.50) ; or fifteen copies
of "Democracy or Despotism" at $1.00 each (regular price $1.25) to
one address, purchasers paying the freight.

^ Now is the time to get ready for the winter's work. You can in-
vest in nothing that will pay so large a return as when you invest in
yourself. You can earn these courses getting up clubs for the books.
You can greatly reduce the expense and add to the pleasure and profit
of the work by getting up classes in any of these Courses.

ADDRESS ALL COMMUNICATIONS, always mentioning that ycu saw this ad in THE WESTERN COMRADE,

The International School of Social Economy

to

R. R. No. 1, Box 15, BERKELEY. CALIFORNIA.

Political Action

Co-operation

So

c 1 a 1 1 s m

The Western Comrade

Devoted to the Cause of the Workers
Entered as second-class matter November 4th, 1916, at the post office at Llano, California, mider Act of March 3, 1879.

PUBLISHED EACH MONTH AT LLANO. CALIFORNIA.
JOB HARRIMAN Managing Editor. "^g*= 7 ERNEST S. WOOSTER Business Manager

Subscription Rate — 75c a year; Canada $1. Single Copies 10c; clubs of 4 or mora (in U. S.) 50c. Combination with LLANO COLONIST $1.
Publishers and others are invited to copy at will from the WESTERN COMRADE, but are asked to give credit. Nothing copyrighted unless so stated.
In making change of address always give your former one so that the mailing department may be certain that the right name is being changed.

Please do not send subscriptions, changes of address, complaints, etc., to individuals. Address ALL communications to the Llano Publica-
tions, Llano, Calif. This paper will not assume responsibility unless this rule is followed.

VOL. V.

LLANO, CALIFORNIA, OCTOBER, 1917.

No. 6

Editorials «

Job Harriman

NEVER in the history of the world did a revolutionary
movement show such vitality and determination as that
of Russia. It is confronted with the all but irresistible
German army; with the conservative, plutocratic rebellions of
the empire; and with the infinitely complex and perplexing
problems of reconstruction. Yet the new government is
handling the situation with great skill and profound wisdom.
Political and industrial democracy are growing in an orderly
manner out of the tyranny and chaos that gave them birth.

The vitality of this new movement is due largely to the phil-
osophy of Socialism, so thoroughly and generally understood
by the Russian people. This movement was known as "under-
ground Russia." It grew in spite of eternal vigilance of the
universal secret service spy system, backed by a brutal police
and an armed force of infantry and cossacks.

These humble but highly intelligent people contrived to
publish their books, pamphlets, papers and leaflets, and to cir-
culate them by the millions throughout the empire. Occasion-
ally an unfortunate, courageous enthusiast became too bold,
and, being detected, he was transported to the mines or
prisons of Siberia and punished for life for the crime of up-
lifting and educating his fellowmen. It was these long years
of persistent and relentless effort to teach the people their
rights that prepared the Russian mind for the establishment of
the foremost democracy of the world.

It was in the same manner and against similar obstacles that
the German Socialists overcame the brutal Bismarckian laws,
and were, before the war, moving irresistibly toward the over-
throw of the Kaiser's government and the establishment of a
social democracy.

The downfall of the Kaiser will yet be brought about, not
by the Socialist forces from without, but by the Socialist
forces from within. It will be done with order, precision and
determination. Even greater discipline and more profound
wisdom will be shown in Germany than was shown in Russia.

Whoever is acquainted with the German people and has ob-
served the German mind must know that they will not make
a move until they first know that they maintain perfect mili-
tary discipline and sustain a solid front to their enemies when
the Kaiser goes down. It is toward the fall of the Kaiser and

the uplift of the people that the Socialists of Germany have
been moving for the last half century. Their victory is as
certain as the morrow is to come. The peaceful, educational
methods of the Socialist movement will overcome and over-
throw any government on earth that rests its power on op-
pression, sustained by brute force.

There is a profound reason for this. Every human being,
like all other forms of energy, seeks the line of least resistance.
When he is bearing burdens of tyranny and plutocracy, he is
not moving in the line of least resistance. Every thought that
tells him how to cast off his burden and make life more
desirable is music to his ears and food for his soul.

There is yet another reason. Every conviction that leads to
one's liberty of his fellows begets a social passion that is dearer
than life, and for which millions have been, and, if necessary,
will yet be crucified. But persecution and crucifixion and all
the tortures of hell will not cause them to deny their convic-
tions nor surrender their social passions.

Yet there is not and never has been a man in all the woria
so rich but that he would freely give his last dollar to save
his life!

The social passion, the inborn desire to give aid and succoi
to humanity is born and lives and moves in the very depths
of human impulses, while the getting of money is only a matter
of superficial rational activity.

It is because of this fact that all governments founded on
property rights constantly gather military power around them,
but are from their inception doomed to go down before the
tidal wave of more humane impulses, struggling for the general
uplift and the welfare of the race.

THE headquarters of the Socialist Party in Chicago and
various other cities are reported to have been raided by
the government authorities.

We cannot believe this has been done with the sanction
of President Wilson. The world cannot be made safe for
democracy by such methods.

There is a very general misunderstanding of the Socialist
on the part of many government and state officials.

The Sociahst movement is international. The members

Page four

The Western Comrad

have been meeting together in international congresses for
half a century. Their interests and philosophy are the same.
They feel towards and treat each other as brothers. They
are brothers, not only in theory but in deed. The thought of
killing each other is unbearable and except when immediate
necessity presses, they refuse to fight.

We believe, however, that none of them would refuse to
work in any industry where conscription might call them, es-
pecially if that work were required to be done upon property
conscripted for the same purpose.

Surely if men may be conscripted to work, property may
also be conscripted for them to work with and upon.

Conscription of men, conscription of food, conscription of
property, is as certain as tomorrow, if the war lasts.

If men, food, and property are conscripted they will not be
unconscripted. "You cannot unscramble eggs." The power
to conscript in times of war establishes the right to conscript
in times of peace or war. Necessity knows no law but action,
and such action is always in line with the power action, let
that power be what it may.

It is up to the acting power to be wise, for if wisdom is
lacking and the burdens imposed are too heavy, the result will
be a revolution. That is what took place in Russia. That
is what President Wilson demands of the German people ; that
is what vrtll happen wherever the burdens are unbearable.

Conscription of men, foods, and property lead inevitably
to state socialism; beyond that, and in sight, lies the long-
sought Social Democracy.

England's war debt to date is upwards of $5,000,000,-
000; the war debt of the United States at the present
moment is $20,000,000,000.

A fool and his money are soon parted.
o

CHEAP bread! Unfortunately, we do not have it; but it
will soon come.

"The members of the price-fixing commission think that
the new price will permit of a fourteen-ounce loaf of bread
selling for five cents and allowing a fair profit both to the
flour manufacturer and the baker," says the Literary Digest.

A profit, fair or unfair, is fixed in the minds of all. This
fact is the fulcrum upon which the world war is turning.
World cataclysms will continue as long as this fact remains.
No man can make a profit off another and live in harmony
with him. The bone and marrow of all war is the conflict
of interest; and "profit" is the essence of the conflict.

THE Pope's peace proposal is now being published by
a Catholic publishing company and circulated in an
artfully prepared paper that spouts flames of danger from
every line.

The mighty organization of Catholicism is striving with all
its might to re-establish the temporal power and absolutism
of the Pope.

The following quotation will reveal the hand-writing on
the wall. But the Pope will be the Belshazzer:

"In my opinion, Europe and the civilized world ought to
institute at Rome a tribunal of arbitration presided over by
the Pope, which should take cognizance of the difference
between Christian princes. This tribunal, established over
princes to direct and judge them, would bring us back to the
golden age."

Golden age, indeed! It is a golden age now for the princes.
Princes always have and always will, as long as princes exist,
enjoy a golden age! What do we want with princes and their
golden ages? Will someone tell? What was the American
Revolution all about? We are not looking for a golden age
for princes or Popes. They have had their innings. They
have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Pov-
erty, misery, ignorance and degradation have been man's lot
under their sceptres. Away with their political power! They
are partners in tyranny. It remains for the people to be part-
ners in liberty and democracy.

Again we listen to the Pope: "We must find a new bond
to unite us all. The Pope alone can form this bond. Only
Rome can make her impartial and unprejudiced voice heard,
for no one doubts for an instant the integrity of her judge-
ment."

How about her impartial and unprejudiced judgment in the
days of the Spanish inquisition? No, no one doubts. Every-
body knows that the world has had enough of such impartial
and unprejudiced judgment. None of it for us.

Again: "The niterests of the human race require that there
be a curb which will restrain sovereigns and protect the life of
nations; this curb of religion might by universal consent have
peen placed in the hands of the Pope."

Curbing! The people had better do their own curbing.
The Pope curbs to the glory of the Pope. The people will
curb to the glory of the people. A little abolition on the side
might help some.

Again: "It is necessary that the present system of decidiag
international questions by a congress be abandoned and re-
course be had to the supreme arbitration of the Pope."

The pages of history are smeared with the blood of religious
persecutions. The hands of the Popes are black with human
gore.

Swallow the Pope by choice and you will swallow his re-
/igion by force!

What is the matter with democracy?

THE most remarkable fact in connection with the enormous
cantonments now being built in the various parts of our
country is the permanency of structures.

Concrete foundations of many buildings; water pipes en-
cased in concrete; enormous substantial storage houses; and
other durable structures; — all impress one with the idea that
the foundation for militarism, rather than democracy, is being
laid.

In all probability, those holding such political offices as
enable them to temporarily direct the construction work, will
honestly repudiate this idea, but their terms of office will soon
expire, while the institutions that gave rise to their military
camps will continue to live and the owners of those institutions

ThcWcslcrn Comrade

rage

will direct the military force of the future as they direct ;he
military power of today in every labor trouble.

The labor and reform movements will then stand face to
face with an all but irresistible military force. Such a suc-
cessful strike as the recent shipbuilders' strike in San Fran-
cisco will be a thing of the past.

Far be it from us to question the honesty of our high offi-
cials. But honesty does not remove danger. An honest man
is far more dangerous than a hypocrite if he is in error. A
hypocrite can be changed from his course by a show of power,
but an honest man will die for his convictions, be they right
or wrong.

So, also, are those honest who own the industries. And,
strange as it may appear, every dollar of accumulated profit
confirms the conviction of the man who believes that it is right
to accumulate money by employing men for a wage less than
the worth of their product. Comforts and luxuries are added
in proportion to the wealth accumulated, and even doubtful
opinions are transformed into convictions by the luxuries that
are added. It is hard indeed for him to surrender his luxuries
who kuows that he has employed wrong methods m accumulat-
ing them; but it is impossible for him to surrender them if
he believes the methods employed to accumulate them were
right.

Not only will the honest man die for this privilege; but,
being in power, he will use the public force to protect himself
and all others in the exercise of those privileges. In this fact
lies all the elements of monarchy and of militarism. Militarism
and monarchy are only different forms of the same thing.
Their roots run down into, and are made up of, the private
ownership of productive property. While this institution of
private property lasts, our liberties are in danger, and democ-
racy hangs by a thread.

GOVERNOR FERGUSON, of Texas, has been impeached.
Of course, he resigned his office but did not do so until
the vote impeaching him was about to be taken. Not only is
he impeached, but he is indicted for embezzlement and mis-
appropriation of funds. Nor is he alone; he has plenty of
company. Many officials in high places in that state are now
before the grand jury and will be prosecuted for the same
offence.

The condition in Texas is not very different from that in
other states. The trouble in Texas seems to be that the
machinery of the state got out of the hands of the machine.

The preachers of Texas have raised their voices at least
an octave. It is not a sweet refrain that they are singmg.
The titles of their songs are "original sin," "the fall of man,"
and "total depravity," and their breaths are laden with the
brimstone and sulphur.

They have forgotten that these men were born pure and
sweet, and were those of whom Christ spoke when he said:
"Suffer little children to come unto Me and forbid them not,
for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

Nor yet do these preachers see that the temptations laid
before these men by the industrial and commercial system of
which these very preachers are champions, is the cause of

their downfall. The money power incident to office was a
greater temptation than they could withstand.

Our political institutions are only a duplicate of our in-
dustrial institutions. The opportunity to get money without
earning it is the curse of the age. Buying and selling and
speculating and employing for profit — all lead to gambling
and swindling and embezzling, and getting money by cunning.

The principle involved in both are the same.

Something for nothing is the curse of the age.
o

BRUTE force as a means of government is committing
suicide. It is the law of death. Every race or species
that adopts force as a rule of action ends in the tomb. The
most peaceful races and the most peaceful animals have sur-
vived. Were force the law of life, the reverse would be true.
o

JUDGE BURNS of Texas would murder all men who vote
contrary to his views on the war question. He would
crucify democracy in the name of the nation. He is mad
with power and made insane by the law's restrictions. Our
laws are made to bridle such beasts. No crime is too base
for him who would deny the right of franchise to the Amer-
ican people. The right of suffrage was the fruit of the
American Revolution. The blood of our forefathers was
spilt for this right. Burns would wickedly spill the blood of
our forefathers to maintain it.

Instructing the local grand jury, he said, "If I had a wish
I would that you men had jurisdiction to return bills of in-
dictment against those who sought to obtain votes at the
expense of the nation's welfare. Such men should be placed
against a stone wall and shot."

Judge Burns is guilty of treason. When accepting office
he swore that he would support the Constitution. The right
of free speech and unrestricted suffrage is the very heart
of our constitution. His statement, if followed, would cut
this heart out.

The people shed their blood for the privilege ol voting
for the alteration, the change and repeal of any law that they
disapproved.

If Burns' advice were followed, another civil and terrible
revolution would be upon us.

The policy of our people is and should be to support all
laws while in force, but to change them when disapproved.

What else does democracy mean?

II the President's message means anything it means this.
No one has a right to presume that he means otherwise until
he says or acts to the contrary.

Violence to the right of franchise is treason in the first
degree.

The robe of a judge can not conceal this treasonable act.

o

*'^)EACE without victory!" The hope of America!

*■ This is the hope of the people of the world!

But this is not the hope of the aristocracy of the world. To
this sentiment they say "Get thee behind me, Satan, I know
thee not!" The aristocrats are ravenous beasts. They are
ambitious for the spoils of war and for the world's dominion.

Page

The Western C(

Llano's Louisiana Purchase

W

HEN the Llano del Rio Co-operative Colony was estab-
lished at Llano, Los Angeles County, California, it
was expected that it would be the first of what should
ultimately be a large number of associated colonies
scattered through many states, all to be correlated and to work
in perfect harmony with one another.

Now the time has arrived when this intention is to be car-
ried out.

The first attempt was made at Llano, and it has aroused
widespread interest. From every English-speaking country
come letters evincing the utmost sympathy, and expressing
the desire to be with those who are pioneering in this work.

Llano, situated in the edge of the great Mojave Desert, in
the part known as the Antelope Valley, is one of the finest
pear-producing districts in the world. Apples and other fruits
do well. Markets are not far distant, and every indication
points to the Llano property eventually being worth millions
of dollars if developed as a fruit growing district.

But in the meantime Llano cannot support a great popula-
tion because trees do not begin to bear for several years.
The pioneer work having been done, most of the people will
either have to go into some industry or to go into some other
colony.

About a year ago Comrade Harriman began a quiet in-
vestigation to determine the best place to begin the first colony
extension work. His travel took him into many states and
he considered many tracts of land. Finally he learned of a
vast stretch of virgin soil in the cut-over pine district of west-
ern Louisiana. Without making known his intentions, he
investigated fully, gathered an amazing quantity of accurate
and detailed information, and reported to the Board of Direc-
tors. It was favorably considered by them and then the pro-
position was placed before the Colonists in a mass meeting.
They became convinced of the splendid possibilities. A com-
mittee was at once appointed to verify the report of Comrade
Harriman and to gather further information.

This committee left Llano the latter part of August. Stops
were made at Minneola, Texas, for the big encampment there,
and at other places. The comrades in Texas were wildly
enthusiastic and immediately proffered aid of all sorts in mak-
ing the first extension a grand success.

But like their comrades in Llano, they were very much
opposed to the disposal of the California property. This has
been advocated by some. The sentiment is not at all favorable
to such a sale.

The foregoing brief explanation is intended to forestall mis-
conceptions on the part of readers, and erroneous ideas as
to why this move is to be made.

The Truth About Louisiana

The Gulf Lumber Company owned a 16,000 acre tract of
land in Vernon Parish, Louisiana, one portion of it is within
one mile of Leesville, the Parish seat of Vernon Parish, being
to the south and west, and about 12 miles from the Sabine
River. It is perhaps 45 miles from Alexandria, 100 miles from
Shreveport, and about 200 miles from New Orleans.

So much misunderstanding exists concerning Louisiana, and
so much misinformation has been spread broadcast, that it is
necessary to correct, right on the start, some of these erronous
impressions.

Louisiana has been considered a state of swamps, alligators,
yellow fever, malaria, and people of little education. Of
course a portion of this is true; otherwise the wrong stories
would never have been told and re-told. But the truth about

Louisiana is that it is like many other states — some of it is
good and some is not so good. There are swamps along the
coast. In these swamps there are mosquitoes and in them
diseases menace the health.

But these swamps are only a comparatively small part of
the area of the state. The rest of Louisiana is a treasure
house of potential wealth. Its soil is wondrously rich. Its
people are probably as well educated. Though it has had
overwhelming odds to contend with, Louisiana has made pro-
gress. Without advertising, and therefore without having at-
tracted wide-spread attention, Louisiana nevertheless has
forged ahead.

One of the best portions of Louisiana is Vernon Parish,
which has been covered with heavy forests of pine timber,
this being the chief long leaf pine district. Some of the
greatest saw mills in the world are here. The most recent
figures give 666,000 acres of timber land out of the nine
hundred and eighty thousand acres comprising the total acre-
age of the county. Residents are few, there being but 20,000
in the Parish. Leesville, the county seat, has but 2,500 people.
It is a modern little city, and a pretty one, vflth good schools
and modern conveniences.

The Highlands of Vernon Parish are fertile and productive.
Moreover, these piney highlands are healthful. There are no
mosquitoes, no malaria, no fevers. The people are healthy.
A letter from Dr. Oscar Dowling, to the WESTERN COM-
RADE in answer to questions concerning the health condi-
tions of Vernon Parish, brought the following answer:

New Orleans, La.
Llano Publications: Sept. 7. 1917.

Llano, Cal.
Gentlemen:

Your inquiry concerning Vernon Parish received and it is a
pleasure to state that health conditions in the entire state of Louisiana
will compare favorably with those of any other Southern state . . .

As Slate Health Officer, I travel over the slate — even to the
remote rural districts — many times every year. I have been in Vernon
during the last seven years a number of times. The citizens there are
very healthful in appearance, and the schools are running over. Both
of these I consider most excellent indications of go®d conditions.

An adequate supply of potable water may be had in any
section of Vernon, and if the residents are reasonably careful as to
their sanitary environs . . . they need not fear sickness any more
than in any other part of the country.

Very truly yours.

OSCAR DOWLING, President

The weather conditions are also favorable. Though there
is no weather bureau station in Vernon Parish, there is one
at Sugartown just a few miles south and one at Robeline, a
few miles north of the Colony property. Precipitation for
Robeline is given at 45 inches for the year, for Sugartown
at 53 for the year. Mean temperature for the year is highest
at both stations during July and August, and stands at be-
tween 81 and 82. Lowest mean temperature is given at
Robeline at 47 in December and January, and at Sugartovm
at 50 and 5 1 for December, January and February. These
figures are taken from records covering a number of places.
Thus it will be seen that there is ample rainfall, and very
little cold weather, giving a growing season of at least eight
months.

The Commission of Agriculture and Immigration has this
to say regarding Vernon Parish:

"This Parish is situated in the western part of the state, and
contains 986,600 acres of land. The formation is chiefly pine hills,
with a little prairie and alluvial lands. The Kansas City Southern
railroad runs north and south through this parish. It is drained by the
Sabine and Calcasieu rivers, and by bayous Comrade, Castor, Ana-

The Western Comrade

Page seven

coco, and numerous small streams. Water is abundant and of good
quality.

"Leesville, on the Kansas City Southern railroad, is the Parish seat.
Cotton is the chief crop product, and corn and hay, oats, peas, sweet
potatoes, Irish potatoes, and sorghum are grown. The fruits and nuts
are peaches, pears, pecans, apples, figs, pomegranates, plums, and
grapes. Livestock comprises cattle, sheep, hogs, and horses. Game
consists of deer, squirrels, coons, opossums, rabbits, beaver, wild
turkeys, wild ducks, partridges, woodcock, pheasant, becasine snipe,
plover and rice birds. There are fine varieties of fish found in the
streams, among them trout, pike, bar fish, and bass. The timber is
pine, oak, elm, gum, willow, hickory, and cottomvood. Extensive areas
of long leaf pine exist."

The crop report for the year 1916 gives the following data
regarding crops produced in Vernon Parish.

Cotton 1598 bales Sweet potatoes.... 100,000 bu.

Corn 240,000 bushels Irish potatoes 10,000 bu.

Syrup 4,500 barrels Hay 700 tons

Peanuts 1 ,000 bushels Oats 7,000 bushels

Amons the live stock listed are 15,075 head of catde, 5,864
hogs, besides sheep, goats, horses, mules, etc., proving con-
vincingly that this is an ideal stock country.

Forage crops grow splendidly, and Louisiana can boast of
many varieties of grasses. In these piney highlands, which
are 240 feet above sea level, rolling, well-drained, with rich
soil and healthful environment, many kinds of forage grasses
grow and as a stock country it is so good that this promises
to become one of the greatest meat producing regions of North
America. Here the livestock of the Colony can be pastured
through most of the year, and made ready for market at little
cost.

What The Committee Reported

When the committee was selected by the Colonists to view,
investigate, and report, it went with a full sense of the tremen-
dous responsibility resting on it, and its report is given with
all due care for accuracy. The committee consisted of Pre-
sident Job Harriman and Secretary W. A. Engle of the Llano
del Rio Company of Nevada, and Robert E. White, assistant
superintendent of the ranch. The report is given here.

"The state of Louisiana is a rich and beautiful but sadly
neglected state. It has not yet completely recovered from the
blow dealt it during the Civil War. This is one of the reasons
why its land has not been taken up before and why it is pos-
sible for the Colony to secure this vast, rich territory. Even
yet there are old plantations which have never been touched
since the war, the buildings long since fallen into decay, the
lands grown again with pines, some almost large enough to
be made into lumber.

"The stream of emigration has been westward, and Louis-
iana, neglecting to advertise her wonderful resources, has been
overlooked. Even those from the South, westward bound,
passed through Louisiana without stopping, and have gone
on into Texas.

"But this year there is drouth in Texas. There are vast
districts as barren as the desert, the cattle and other stock
driven off in search of pasturage, the fields mere dry wastes.
No rain has fallen for many months, and what was once a
productive land is now being deserted. The people are leav-
ing, and the stream of emigration is this time eastward again,
east into the heretofore neglected and overlooked Mississippi
states, where this year the corn and cotton crops are large,
for this land does not have drouth. The rains never fail.

"The land for which the Colony has bargained, an im-
mense tract of 16,000 acres, is southwest of Leesville. On
it are perhaps 1200 acres of the finest of hardwood timber,
comparable with the best to be found anywhere in the Missis-
sippi Valley. Its estimated value runs up into the hundreds
of thousands of dollars. These trees are of several kinds,

among them being beech, magnolia, white oak, cypress, walnut,
post oak, red oak, sweet gum, hickory. The trees are very
large, magnificent specimens of their kind. There is also much
good pine, though the trees are scattered in small groups. It
will, however, serve to supply the Colony with all of its needs
for many years to come.

"Among the first questions asked are: What will the land
produce? What kind of soil is it? Is it easily worked?

"The soil is a gray sand, underlaid with a deep red subsoil.
It is easily worked, but it must be remembered that this tract
is almost entirely covered with stumps, and these must be
taken out, although it is possible to farm with them in the
land for a while. The trees were cut off about fifteen years
ago.

"The land is highly productive and good results can be
secured for the labor applied, but it means work and lots of
it. On the land are several small farms, and inquiries were
made to ascertain what is grown and what the production is.
Special attention was given to learning whether the land would
produce the very first year, and also whether it would retain
its fertility. It was found, by questioning there, that the land
will produce from the first, and that the variety of crops is
extensive. Moreover, it will retain its fertility, though of
course the rotation of crops, rational methods, and the appli-
cation of fertilizer crops or fertilizers are quite as essential
for big results as they are anywhere else. One of these
farms had been farmed for fifteen years and is a paying
proposition.

"The land will produce many crops. There is no finer fig
district anywhere. This will surprise those who had con-
sidered California the finest fig groviing state. Cotton and
corn and sugar cane are the big paying crops. Melons of
all kinds produce wonderfully. This is in the pecan district.
Oats are profitably grown here. Peaches, plums, prunes,
cherries are all profitable, as are berries of nearly every variety.
Not far away, in this same general district, the growing of
strawberries is a special industry. Raspberries, blackberries,
and dew berries grow wild. With the exception of citrus
fruits, there are practically no fruits but what can be produced
here, not only for home use, but also commercially, and made
to pay. Vegetables of all kinds do exceptionally well. There
will be no difficulty in producing everything for our own use,
and having a great abundance to dispose of. We should be
able to market a large quantity of corn, cotton, melons, pota-
toes, cane and peanuts the first season.

"On this land are a number of small cottages which can be
utilized by having just a little work done on them. Lumber
is easily secured, and the building of other houses is a matter
of comparatively little expense. On an adjoining piece of
land is a saw mill, and it is possible that we will be able to
secure this mill for Colony uses at less cost than one could be
taken from Llano.

"One of the advantages we will enjoy is being close to the
railroad, so that transportation will not be a serious problem.
Leesville, close by, has a good high school and good grammar
schools. Our educational problem will not be a serious one.

"There is no disease, except such as is found in any dis-
trict anywhere in almost any country. The environment is
good and the health conditions are excellent. There are no
mosquitoes. Though we were there in the early part of
September, the heat was not oppressive, and we slept under
blankets every night. This condition did not exist in other
parts of Louisiana even at that time. The people are alert,
progressive, and of the kind that it is a pleasure to be among.
"Water in the wells is clear as crystal, and as pure as water
can be. In the streams, however, the water is discolored by
the leaves and vegetation, though not impure. Fish live in
it. Large ones are caught in the stream which flows through

eight

TKe Western Coi

this property. About twelve miles away is the Sabine River,
which is full of fish of several varieties.

"No liquor IS sold in Louisiana. It is a dry state. It is
a place to make a home and to want to live. The need of
Louisiana has been men and money, and her resources have
been largely untouched. Only about twenty per cent of the
arable land is under cultivation. Vast fertile tracts are not
producmg. Just recently have efforts been made to develop
the agricultural resources as they should be. In Vernon Parish
the land has been covered with timber, which has, of course,
prevented agricultural development, but as this is being rapidly
cut off, the time is close when it will all be under cultivation."

"This report is not by any means complete, but it will
give a good idea of what to expect. The land is rich, but
it requires work to make it produce. We investigated every
phase of it we could think of, and we believe that no place
we have ever seen combines so many advantages.

"A summary of what is secured with the new Colony pos-
sessions will give a more adequate idea of the wonderful
possibilities and the ease with which it may be developed
and made to become productive.

16,000 acres of land in all; One office 40x50 feet, iron

1,200 acres of hardwood tim- safe included;

ber; Eight other sheds and struc-

27 good habitable houses; tures;

One 18-room hotel, in fairly 2 million feet of lumber in

good condition; these wooden buildings.

100 cheap houses; 5 concrete drying kilns, each

One shed 130x300 feet; about 20x70 and 20 feet

One shed 130x200 feet; high, cost $12,000;

One shed 80x100 feet; Railroad bed with ties (no

One store 30x90 feet, fixtures rails) through the middle

in good shape; of the tract, connecting

1 concrete power house; with railroad on each side.

"The value of the above, aside from the labor put into
them, is quite a consideration, and will save a vast amount
of time and work. Besides housing the first families who go
there, the industries can also be well housed and no time will
be lost in providing for them.

"Very little work will be required to put the buildings into
condition so that they may be used at once.

"This is indeed the most wonderful opportunity, and nothing
can hinder the progress of the Colony. There is every reason
to believe that within a short time the Llano Colony in Louis-
iana will be a producing, thriving, growing concern, a source
of interest to all, a means of livlihood and more to those
within it."

Some idea of the vastness of a 16,000 acre tract of land
may be secured by remembering that if 16,000 acres were
laid out in one long narrow strip, one mile wide, it would
extend for 25 miles. Just imagine some point 25 miles away
and think how immense this is! Or, if we were in a more
nearly square shape, which it is, it would be 5 miles in length
and 5 miles in width.

So well impressed were the people of Texas and Oklahoma,
that they gave substantial pledges of their intention of be-
coming members immediately the tract is ready to receive
members. Before the deal was fully closed, thirty families
were ready to become residents of the New Llano. This is
the kind of recommendation that the people who know West-
ern Louisiana are giving. One comrade from Texas writes
that there will be 75 to 100 ready to come in by December
first. And this means that the first extension work of the Llano
Colony will be a gigantic success from the very first.

In spite of war and high prices and mistakes and hardships
and disappointment and attacks by those who cannot or will
not understand, the co-operative colony movement is going

ahead and the wonderful work attempted by the Llano del Rio
Colony has just really commenced.

Inquiries made in the Llano Colony indicate that a majority
of the people here will desire to go to Louisiana to give the
new Colony a start. Not all, of course, will go, for there are
many so enamored of the climate and the wonderful views that
they will not leave. Others came here, drawn largely because
of the healthful conditions, the dryness of this climate being
the particular quality that attracted them. These persons will
not want to go. They are here to stay.

But many of the people of Llano naturally have the desire to
change environment. It is of their chief characteristics. They
are venturesome by nature. The idea of extending the work
of the Llano Colony, of invading the Solid South with the
ideas of co-operation applied, appeals to them.

So the likelihood is that a majority will want to go to Louis-
iana. They wil pack up their household utensils and goods.
The industries will be taken down, some of them, and moved
to the new center of activity. The temporary tent houses will
be razed to the ground, the canvas converted into many pur-
poses, the frame work made into other articles and used in
building.

It is to be a titanic task, this one of moving a city. It means
incessant activity. It means securing many cars, perhaps a

$185,000 has been spent in hard-surfacing the roads in Vernon Parish.
Further Improvements are being made yearly.

whole train. The road will be lined with loads of goods bound
for Palmdale.

Of course, this does not mean the abandonment of Llano,
California. It merely means expansion. Those who are left
will carry on the enterprise. They will develop the water, put
it on the land, distribute it through the ditches to the points
where it is most needed. They will plant the orchards and
care for them. Theirs will be the task of carrying out the
plans which have been made.

Llano Socialists have come, have worked out their theories,
and have demonstrated them. They have stripped theory of
its non-essentials and have reduced it to a practice. They
KNOW their Socialism. Theirs is not mere theory, untried.
Theirs is the experience born of three years of worthy effort,
of genuine constructive work, of pioneering where man and
nature frowned, where powerful enemies oppressed, where ig-
norance cast its obstacles in their path, and where the faint-
hearted quit and the doubters left.

But it has made its place. It has everything in its favor.
Llano the Second is born, and by the time this reaches the
readers, it will already be a lusty youngster, anxious to con-
quer and subjugate the 16,000 acres before it.

[The November WESTERN COMRADE will tell about the plans being
made for handling and developing the new Colony.]

The Western Coitirad(

Page nine

The Devil's Punch Bowl

OUTH of Llano, lucked away in the surrounding
hills, and scarce visible from the road unless special
attention is directed toward it, lies a huge mass of
conglomerate rock, worn and eroded, seared by time
and storm, perforated by innumerable little caves, carved
into deep canyons and ravines. Uplifted masses rear them-
selves above the general level. A precarious trail winds along
cliffs that look down hundreds of feet into the chasms below.
It is a weird and picturesque spot, little visited, rich in scenic
wonders, a small reproduction of some of the wonders seen
in the Grand Canyon of the Colorado.

The Devil's Punch Bowl it is called. It is perhaps a mile
in width and two miles or more in length, paralleling the
ranges of the Sierra Madres. Almost devoid of vegetation,
yet circled by more or less verdant hills the spot is one to
long be remembered.

Visitors are not taken to the Devil's Punch Bowl when
they visit Llano. Some go to the timber where the logging
camp is, where pretty, though diminutive, Jackson's Lake is
a cool and inviting spot; some go to the Fish Hatchery where
the cienegas, flowing from the dry bed of a seasonal creek,
unite to form the Big Rock, and these visitors marvel at the
springs thus bursting forth.

But the Devil's Punch Bowl is not Llano property and it
is not easily accessible. There is a way to reach it by auto-
mobile. That is by way of the Pallet Valley, a valley high
above the Antelope Valley, snuggled up close to the highest
southern mountain range visible from Llano, in the protected
coves and arroyes of which are small farms. But the road
from Llano to the Pallet Valley is neither direct nor good,
and those who make the trip once do not care to make it
again unless it is necessary.

There is another way and a direct one. That is to go
through the beautiful Valyermo ranch, perhaps five miles
south of Llano. The road to this place is excellent. But the
rest of the trip to the Bowl must be made afoot. However,
the trail is good, and it is easily followed.

Standing sentinel guard over the North Portal of the Bowl
is a giant mass of red rock. A narrow defile through the
hills which mask the Punch Bowl widens rapidly and the
vast upheavals of grayish rock are piled higher and higher.

Trickling out through the south gap is a little stream. It
does not get far, soon being absorbed by the thirsty sand,
licked up by the ardent sun, and drunk by the roots of the
alders that line the little stream. A splendid camp ground,
long known and reached by a short trail branching off from
the main one, with plenty of wood, with clear, cold, pure
water in abundance makes this a delightful place to remain.
The source of the little rivulet is about 200 yards above this
spot, where it emerges from beneath the foot of a cliff. Early
in the morning there is a generous How; by night it has
dwindled to a mere trickle, but it is unfailing throughout the
year. Why it should be so low in the evening is not fully
explained by absorption, by the amount taken in by tree roots,
and that which is evaporated. The interesting explanation
has been advanced that the mass of rock in the cliff becomes
heated during the day, expands, and in this expansion closes
the crevice until only a small dribble comes out of the earth-
quake fault, just as one might shut off a faucet.

Leaving camp, and again taking to the trail, one is soon
high up toward the crest of the formations, for the trail dis-
dains the valley and holds to the ridge. It is an old and
well worn one, probably used when these mountains were pros-
pected over.

On every side are deep clefts, while rising higher than

the trail and off to the west are still higher peaks. Many are
quite rugged, and some are almost sponge-like in appearance,
being honey-combed with deep, narrow caves which reach
into the dark interior of the peaks.

Some of these caves are quite large, and one which is
easily accessible, though not visible from the trail and perhaps
500 yards west of it, is large enough to shelter a dozen men.
Bees are occupants of many small fissures and holes in the
cliffs. High up on some of the crests can be seen dark open-
ings about which buzzards wheel and sail, and in which are
probably their nests.

With exception of the trees along the rivulet before men-
tioned, and a clump of pine trees near the trail in another
place where a depression has permitted soil to collect enough
to nourish some hardy pines, there is little vegetation with
exception of some manzanita and greasewood that clings
to the steep, rocky walls, their roots prenetrating the crevices
of the rocks and finding in some mysterious manner, food and
water on which to survive.

This whole, upheaved rocky mass lies in strata, the lines
of which are visible at considerable distances. Great uptilted
ledges, pointing at angles of 45 degrees toward the north,
each perfectly parallel with its neighbors, lean like multiplied
towers of Pisa, vast and mysterious and enticing.

In this land of the Devil's Punch Bowl, barren of vegeta-
tion, nearly, there's a charm and a beauty that is difficult to
describe. Deep clefts have been worn by tiny streams of
water which have persistently cut away at the soft rock till
they have worn their way through. Through these gateways,
V-shaped, inverted pyramids of space cut deep into the rock,
are glimpsed enchanting views of the far-off, low-lying hills,
and the still further, vast stretches of the Antelope Valley,
rimmed in the blue distance by the pale Tehachapi mountains,
misty and uncertain on the northern horizon.

There's nothing of value, but there's much of beauty in the
Devil's Punch Bowl, and those who leave Southern California
to visit better advertised regions could spend wonderful days
here and never be more than 100 miles from Los Angeles,
within 50 miles in a direct line.

It is one of the wonderful things of this wonderful spot
on the edge of the Antelope Valley, part of the Mojave Desert.
It is one of the surprises; and comparativelv few even of those
living in the Colony, have ever visited the Devil's Punch Bowl
and viewed its rugged crags, its deep chasms, its caves, its
peaks, its perpendicular cliffs of conglomerate. Some day its
charm will be appreciated and commercialized, and together
with other points of interest here, neglected and appraised
at but a fraction of their value will be the haunt of tourists
and visitors, in summer because of the delightfulness of the
mountains at that season and because it is vacation time; in
winter because residents of Southern California can vary the
monotony of the winter days by quick, easy trips to scenes
of snow. And those from the East, pining for a glimpse of
snow and the bite of frost again, can enjoy it till the novelty
wears off, returning home again, all within a day, for the
Devil's Punch Bowl is 4000 feet above sea level and there's
plenty of snow there in the winter time. It is probably more
beautiful then, even, than it is in the summer. But seen
summer or winter, only those lacking in a perception of the
beauties of Nature or those surfeited with scenes of grandeur
can fail to be impressed with the beauties of the rugged,
rocky pocket hidden among the narrow range of hills that
divides the Antelope Valley from the smaller Pallet Valley.
It can never become a popular place, but it merits a journey
of many miles, and well repays the effort.

Page ten

The Western Coi

The Revolution In North Dakota

By H. G. Teigan

[This is the first of three articles by H. G. Teigan,
story of the Nonpartisan League of North Dakota.]

Written Specially For the Western Comrade
telling the

pRTH DAKOTA is an agricultural state, and wheat is

IVT its chief product. It is, in fact, the greatest wheat

X \ producing state in the Union.

But while North Dakota has produced such an

abundance of wheat that it has become known as the "bread
basket" of the world, the fact remains that the finished pro-
duct — flour — is not made in North Dakota, but in Minneapolis.
At Minneapolis, in Minnesota, are the great flour mills of the
country. These mills grind into flour the wheat produced on
the fields of North Dakota.

Early in the history of the Northwest, a group of shrewd
and far-seeing men saw the opportunity of establishing at
Minneapolis a permanent gouge in the form of flour mills and
a grain buying agency. This grain buying agency became
known as the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce. In 1881 a
law was passed by the Minnesota legislature conferring upon
the Chamber of Commerce the exclusive right to establish the
rules governing its operations. The courts were ousted of all
jurisdiction in regulating its rules. Only the legislature has
power to set these rules aside, and so long as the big millers
and grain gamblers control the legislature, it is not likely that
the rules will in any way be interfered with. It might be of
some interest to know that the Governor of Minnesota, when
this law was passed, was none other than John S. Pillsbury,
the founder of the Pillsbury Flour Mills.

Now to understand the pernicious character of the Chamber
of Commerce in its relation to the farmers of the Northwest,
it is imj>ortant to have a fair understanding of how this in-
stitution controls prices. The Chamber of Commerce not only
buys and sells real grain, but it also buys and sells fictitious
grain — "futures" — that is never delivered or intended to be
delivered. By these gambling methods of the Chamber, it is
an easy matter to force prices down at certain times of the
year, and in like manner compel them to rise at other times of
the year.

At a hearing before the committee of the Minnesota legisla-
ture in 1913, these highly important facts were established:

1 . Future sales in the Minneapolis Chamber of Com-
merce alone has totalled not less than the stupendous sum
of $10,000,000 a year. Prices paid to farmers by millers
for real wheat are fixed by the prices made by the opera-
tions of the pit gamblers.

2. Of the three hundred eighteen specified memberships,
one hundred thirty-five were held by line elevators; fifty
by millers; thirty-nine by terminal elevators; and two hun-
dred by commission houses. The remainder of the mem-
bers were feed men, shippers, manufacturers, linseed oil
men, and others. (In this testimony of John G. McHugh,
secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, there is evidently
a duplication in the enumeration of the owners of mem-
berships.)

3. Much testimony was brought out showing how com-
mission houses owned subsidiary companies, sold grain to
their own subsidiaries and bought it from them.

4. According to Mr. McHugh, "there are commission
charges^ for buying as well as selling, and for future trans-
actions" and the rules permitting these multiple commissions
are established by the very men who pocket the com-
missions.

5. Methods of manipulation are such as to force the
farmer to accept an inadequate price for his wheat, and to

Those Copying Please Give Credit.

boost the price to the consumers after the traders have ob-
tained control of the market.

6. Mr. McHugh contended that the Chamber was a "pri-
vate corporation" and was, therefore, in no way obliged
to publish its affairs.

7. It was shown at this investigation that the Chamber of
Commerce robbed the farmers out of millions of dollars by
a false system of grading. Between September 1, 1910,
and August 31, 1912, the terminal elevators (owned by the
Chamber of Commerce) of Minneapolis, received 15,571,-
575 bushels of No. 1 Northern wheat; but during the same
period these same elevators shipped out 19,978,777 bushels
of the same grade. Yet they had no wheat of this grade on
hand at the beginning of the period, and 1 14,454 bushels
at the end of the period. A like condition was true of No.
2 Northern, but the reverse was true of the lower grades.
This merely goes to prove that the Chamber of Commerce
bought the farmers' wheat at grades far too low. Now it
must be borne in mind that there is considerable difference
in the prices of the high and low grades of wheat. There
are other minor ste"als that I could discuss, but the above
will suffice to show what sort of a proposition the wheat
farmers are up against. (See "Facts for the Farmer," pub-
lished by National Nonpartisan League.)

But the Chamber of Commerce and the big mills have not
been the only exploiters of the farmer. The banks have been
equally bad. It frequently happens that the farmers of the
Northwest do not harvest a large crop, and, with low prices
for their grain, it becomes incumbent upon them to borrow
money at the banks. Often, too, in former years, the home-
steader was compelled to borrow money to buy machinery,
horses, a few cows, and other things necessary in farming. In-
variably the banker charged an interest rate of at least twelve
per cent on these loans. Only on real estate could a slightly
lower rate be obtained. With the Chamber of Commerce
pounding down the price of wheat in the fall, and the banks
at that very time demanding payment of interest and principal,
the farmer was caught "a-comin' and a-goin'."

The effect that this double skinning game had on the farm-
ers can be seen from the following report of the Census:

In 1910 the total number of farms owned in whole or in
part by the operators was 63,212. Of this number 30,651
were reported as free from mortgage; 31,728 were reported
as mortgaged, and for 833 no report relative to mortgage
indebtedness was obtained. The number of mortgaged
farms constituted 50.9 per cent of the total number of own-
ed farms, exclusive of those for which no mortgage report
was obtained. In 1900 such farms constituted 31.4 per
cent, and in 1890, 48.7 per cent. It may be noted that
the per centages given for the three censuses are compar-
able, but that the number of mortgages and unmortgaged
farms reported in 1890 is not entirely comparable with the
numbers reported at the later censuses, because at the cen-
sus of 1890 the farms for which no reports were secured
were distributed betweeen the two classes of mortgaged and
unmortgaged farms. It is evident, however, that the num-
ber of mortgaged farms decreased slightly from 1890 to
1900, but increased greatly from 1900 to 1910.
Since that time the mortgage indebtedness has increased
at an enormous rate. It has been estimated that at least
seventy-five per cent of the farms of North Dakota are now
plastered with one or more mortgages.

This condition of things was primarily responsible for the
revolt of the farmers that took place in 1915. Of course

The Western Comrade

Page eleven

there were other more immediate causes. Two of these I
shall here briefly mention:

1 . The work of the State Union of the American Society
of Equity.

2. The work of the Socialist party.

The work of the Equity Society was confined very largely
to a specific agitation for the inauguration of changes in
the grain grading system and the establishment of a state-
owned terminal elevator either in Minnesota or Wisconsin,
or within the state.

It may be of some interest to know that as early as 1893
a law was passed appropriating $100,000 for the establish-
ment of a state elevator at Duluth, Minnesota, or at Superior,
Wisconsin. Nothing was done to establish this elevator, and
as a matter of fact, nothing could be done, inasmuch as the
law was in violation of the state constitution. The framers
of the state constitution four years before had seen to it
that the gambling game of the Chamber of Commerce should
in no way be interfered with. Thus it was that the Equity
Society commenced a new agitation for the establishment
of a state-owned elevator, about 1908.

In 1909 the legislature was induced to pass a resolution
for a constitutional amendment authorizing the state to estab-
lish a state-owned terminal elevator, and viath the passage
of the same resolution by the 1911 legislature, the proposed
amendment went to the people for approval in the fall of
1912. The amendment was ratified by an overwhelming
vote. The 1913 legislature, however, practically refused to
obey the mandate of the voters as expressed in the vote on
the constitutional amendment. The 1915 legislature also
ignored the expressed demand of the people and even went
so far as to repeal the law passed by the previous legislature
appropriating a small amount for an elevator fund.

During the same period that the Equity Society was agitat-
ing for the establishment of a state-owned terminal elevator,
the Socialist party was also carrying on a vigorous campaign
throughout the state. Its propaganda was confined very large-
ly to the "immediate demands," viz.: for establishment of
state-owned terminal elevators, flour mills, packing houses,
cold storage plants, exemption of farm improvements from
taxation and such other measures as would be of benefit to
the farmer in controlling the marketing of his products. In
short, it was a farmer propaganda.

Thus it was that in the spring of 1915 the farmers of the
state were seething with revolt. The only thing necessary
was a means of crytallizing the revolutionary sentiment.
Here a man of remarkable genius as an organizer appeared
on the scene and commenced the work of active organization.
This man was A. C. Townley. In order to fully appreciate
the story of the early development of the Nonpartisan League,
I wish to quote from one of his speeches delivered at Grand
Forks, March 31st, 1917, two years after the founding of
the League. The following is Mr. Townley 's own story:

"Most of the farmers in this state do not know how the
Nonpartisan League started. They don't know anything
about this Movement in the early months of its develop-
ment; this thing that is big enough now so that it attracts
the attention of all the people of the United States. You
and they want to know about it, so I am going to tell you,
that just a little more than two years ago, out here in the
county of McHenry, at Deering, North Dakota (most of you
know where it is) I met Mr. Wood here — Howard Wood — you
see him in the corner there — and his father, Mr. F. B. Wood.
I had met them down at Bismarck at that legislative session.
I had talked with them and with Mr. Bowen and two or three
others, about a plan to organize the farmers of the state and
capture the government of the state.

"We had an idea, just an idea, and on the first day of March

or the last day of February, I came out to Mr. Howard Wood's
place at Deering. I called him up over the phone. I had
told Mr. Wood about my plan to build the Nonpartisan
League; but he did not expect me to come there in the winter
when there was snow on the ground. But he knew what I
meant when I phoned all right. And he met me on the side-
walk. I will never forget how he looked the day and the hour
and the minute that he looked at me and shook hands.

"He said to me (because he knew what I was there for) :
'What the devil are you out here at this time of the year for?'

"He thought I was coming in the summer, and there I was
in the middle of winter with plans, as he knew, to organize all
the farmers of the state.

"No we didn't have any of the funds that are back of the
Republican party or the Democratic party. We didn't have
any money to build this organization. All we had was just
the idea. And the story to tell.

"You know I have got a reputation of having gone broke.
I want to plead guilty to that. I don't need to emphasize that
very much here. You all know that as a farmer I was not
much more successful than the average farmer. I want to tell
you that there is not very much difference between myself and
a good many other farmers except that I went broke and founc'
it out, where a good many fellows go broke and don't know it.
That is all the difference. (Laughter and applause).

"And when I found out that to farm under the conditions
that you farmers have to live under, made it impossible for a
man ever to hope to win an honest competence, I simply quit
and said: THERE IS ANOTHER WAY OUT. I am going to
cut out this. I know a different way.

"So I roamed around about the prairies of North Dakota
for about a year and a half, talking to the farmers. I used to
walk thirty miles a day sometimes and talk to the different
farmers as I came to them. I thought I understood the matter.
I went from one to the other and I talked to them, hours, and
discussed things with them, sometimes an hour, sometimes
two. to see whether there was not something that could be
done.

"You may think it was peculiar, a funny thing, that I would
tramp back and forth in that wav talking to farmers. But I
thought that an organization could be built. I did not know —
I was not sure. So I went on and on, and talked to farmers,
discussed thinsrs with them. And we would come to the con-
clusion that SOMETHING HAD TO BE DONE, or there was
not any use staying on the farm. And so I got that idea and
that experience.

"Mr. Howard Wood and his father knew I had gone broke
as a farmer, and I was discredited. My neighbors and all
people knew that I was out hollering against conditions; and
when I came to Mr. Wood without any money — my wife at
that time was sick in St. Paul, and I was without any money —
with nothing but a PLAN to organize the farmers of North
Dakota in one summer — when I came to his house when the
snow was still on the ground, asking him to help me do that,
you can readily understand what he meant when he said:
'What the devil are you doing out here at this time of the

year

y

"Mr. Wood had been in the state eight or ten years, and
had given about half of his time to trying to build an organi-
zation and had not got very far. And he had friends! And
here I came to Wood's place wathout any money, without any
friends, with NOTHING BUT A STORY! You begin to get
some idea of the situation. I wonder how many men there
are in this room that I could have got to get out a team and
go with me to see a neighbor with a proposition like that? Of
course, if I had had a good reputation, like Jerry Bacon here
(Bacon is the owner and editor of an Anti-League sheet at

(Continued on page 30)

Page twelve

The Wester)

r a d I

The New Socialism

By Alec Watkins

Writtei) Specially For the Western Comrade. Those Copying Please Give Credit.

HERE is the Socialist Party today? under the burden of Capitahsm, and we could do nothing to

It's activities in many directions have practically set it free.

ceased. Part of its press has been suppressed and Nothing should be more obvious than that if the Co-op-

the rest of it muzzled. Some of its members are in erative Commonwealth is to await the time when the majority

prison, and more are likely to be. Others, more or less pro- of men are able to comprehend the Class Struggle in all its

minent in the counsels of the party in the past, have deserted ramifications, the reign of Capitalism is secure for a long

the ranks and are now dividing their time between firing lime to come.

long-distance broadsides at the Kaiser and hurling verbal
stink-pots at their former comrades. The majority remains
true to their organization, but their organization is utterly
unable to afford them a means of doing effective work.

Our first need is Power. Where are we to get it?
From whence does any political party derive its power?
It should not be necessary to repeat the answer, but our
creed-loving Marxian friends seem to be singularly incapable

Before the war the Socialist Party was like a ship at sea, of grasping it. Any power that a political party may possess
without chart or compass, and headed for nowhere but the is dr^wn from the economic group whose interests it re-
horizon. And the storm came and wrecked it. presents.

Can the Socialist Party make any progress in its present Why was the late Progressive Party a dismal failure? It

shape? It cannot. No organization can do anything with- had the support of able and influential men, men experienced
out power; and the Socialist Party has none. It was impotent in politics, men who held the confidence of a lar<»e part of
in time of peace; it cannot expect to be otherwise in time the people. But they were held together only by an emotional
of war. It failed to prepare for war in time of peace. idealism which found expression in the demand for certain

It is useless to blind ourselves to mildly-benificent reforms. The Pro-

facts. We have been powerless in -=^=^^^=^^^=^^=^==r gressive Party failed because the busi-
the past, we are powerless now, and ness interests of the country were al-

we will continue to be powerless as \A7^^ must understand that a ready attached to one or the other

long as we cling to the methods that VV ^j^n Jg j,ot of necessity a of the principal parties,

have rendered our labors futile in the f^^, ^^ ^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^ ^f ^-^ ■^_ j^ ^ij] be a source of satisfaction

years that have gone. ^ ^^ ^^^.^^ ^^^ Communist to some Socialists to know that the

Ihe situation is not entirely hope- n/i -r ^ i i j \y; , independent Socialist Party, that it is

less. Let us hope that when the Fed- Manifesto backwards. We must ^^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ gj-^.^,.^^^ ^^^

eral authorities entered the National 'earn to utilize the forces that J^^ve left the party since we entered

office of the Social Party a few days may not be consciously socialistic, the war, would also collapse for the

ago they destroyed the dogmatism and but whose progress inevitably leads same fundamental reason — unless they

fanaticism that bound the movement -^ ^^^ direction of Socialism. We ^'^ze upon the opportunity which we

hand and toot and killed the growth. , have neglected. A group of idealists

\Y7U^„ tL^ ,.,.,, =„J.. ;•■ , .;il u., must make co-operation not on y • i- • i r i

When the war ends, it will be ■ > i i V- i ■ i r ""^y exercise a limited usefulness as

necessary to re-build the party. How an ideal to be realized in the distant ^n educational force, but no matter

shall we do it? In the past we built future, but the immediate policy how eloquent or able its members,

it on argumentation, debates, pam- of our party. it can acquire no power while it re-

phlets, lectures, words without end. mains dissociated from the everyday

In the future we must lay its founda- — ' concerns of the interests upon whose

tions deep in our economic institutions. behalf it essays to speak.

In the past we have preached the Class Struggle; in the The reason that our rigid Marxians fail to realize this ele-

future we must get into it — that we may finally end it. mental fact is perhaps because, like all dogmatists, they attach

We must remake our party, reshape its policy, and reverse importance to the letter rather than to the spirit of the teach-
our mental attitude. ings of their master. They passionately affirm allegiance to

We have been narrow, fanatical, dogmatic. Dogmatism all the theories enunciated by Marx, some of them hastily and
inevitably breeds suspicion, intolerance, bitterness. We have imperfectly conceived, but ignore the severely practical spirit
been disgustingly, childishly suspicious of all who could not tliat characterized his entire work. No one did more than
subscribe to our infallible creed. Marx in his time to rescue the sanguine souls who, pinning

Let us make no mistake. Bitter though it will be to the all their faith in the potency of persuasion, believed that the
dogmatist and the doctrinaire, we must be prepared to take Social Commonwealth would suddenly and miraculously spring
to our bosom many whose souls are still scarlet with the sins from man's natural goodness of heart.

of capitalism, many to whose minds the theories of Marx are The Socialist Party must definitely identify itself with every

unknown. And we must be constantly ready to co-operate economic organization whose progress lies in the direction of
with organizations whose feet do not always tread the path Socialism,
we would have them tread. The political Socialist must become an active unionist, and

Fusion! This is heresy, of course. We have but one altern- tlie unions must go into politics. This means a struggle in
ative; we can repeat the performance of the past. We can ^^^ unions, but it is useless to evade the issue; it is inevitable,
stand by ourselves apart, viewing the struggle from the dizzy ^^ '* n°' necessary to make academic socialists of the members
heights of our own creedal perfection, refusing to soil our of ^^^ unions; it is only necessary to convince them that they
skirts by contact with the multitude who are still unwashed in suffer a loss of power through limiting their organized ac-
our own superior brand of holy water. tivity to the industrial field. It is not necessary to fill the

No doubt our company would be select, and certainly it union halls with socialist oratory; but it is necessary that the
would be exclusive; but the world would continue to groan • (Continued on page 30)

The Western Comrade

Page ihirleen

My Californian

By D. Bobspa

STURDY little native son
Of four.

In nightie, ready to sail
The dream ship journey
To the Sandman's palace.
Gazed intent at colored map.

"This is Cal'fornia,

Where I was borned,"

In triumphant announcement;

And then,

"Was you. Daddy, and Muvver

Borned in Cal'fornia too?"

Just Hoosier-born,

We had to confess

Our position

Outside the pale of the elect.

A puzzled look on

That eager, earnest face.

Then a smile.

"But I had you. Daddy and Muvver,
In Indiana."

Confession once again

To that little

California lad.

In Love's young honeymoon

On banks of

"The Wabash far away,"

Full fruition had not come

To consecrate our altar.

Undaunted, undismayed.
Our California sunbeam
Quickly flashed
Triumphant answer,
"But I wanted you.
Daddy and Muvver,
An' I cwed an' cwied.
An' you tame
Across the desert
An' the mountains
To get me in Cal'fornia."

^-^.-T:--

One of the wonderful views looking through a cleft in the Devil's Punch Bow! toward the north. The garden spot seen
below is the Valyermo Ranch; across the range of hills beyond it lies Llano. There are other views which surpass this one,
but they are not so easily represented on paper. This one is looking north across the Punch Bowl, and further off across the
Antelope Valley can be seen the Lovejoy Buttes and the Tehachapi mountains.

Page fourteen

The Western Comrade

Was Schmidt Guilty?

[ rhis is the sixth installment of Comrade Job Harriman's address
in ihe trial of the Los Angeles dynamiting cases.]

pW let me call your attention to the boat in which

Nthe dynamite is alleged to have been carried. You
will remember Howard Baxter. He was one of the

' owners of the boat. His partner swore that the

men who hired the boat were to pay two hundred and fifty
dollars, but Mr. Baxter demanded five hundred dollars deposit.
The deposit and practically the entire transaction was con-
ducted with Mr. Baxter. After the men used the boat one
of them went back to Mr. Baxter. The transaction was closed,
Baxter wrote him a check deducting the rental and the man
went his way. They had probably spent an hour together
conversing partially concerning the business at hand and
partially on general topics. Not withstanding this prolonged
conversation, the most Mr. Baxter could say was that the
defendant resembled the man but that he could not say that
he was the man.

Mr. Scott a relative of Mr. Baxter cashed the check given
by Mr. Baxter. He said, "In my judgement he is the man,
but I would not say positively."

Mr. Burroughs, the partner of Mr. Baxter, said that Schmidt
was not the man. Hold for one moment the image of witness
Bryson in your mind. The man was much fleshier than the
defendant; Bryson was much fleshier. He had a much fuller
face; Bryson had a much fuller face. He was much broader
m the shoulders; Bryson was much broader in the shoulders.
He saw himi, talked to him about the boat, instructed him how
to run the engine, was with him an hour and a half, was down
to the engine room with him, saw him face to face and was
close to him, as close to him as you are to each other for
one hour and a half. He says, "I know that Schmidt is not
the man." What are you going to do with his testimony?
He talked to him more than all the other witnesses put to-
gether. He had been near to him and looked him straight in
the face. He dealt with him both before and after the boat
was used. "HE KNOWS HE IS NOT THE MAN." He
was subpoenaed by the state and should have been examined
by the fair prosecutor, whose sacred duty is to be as fair
to this defendant as to the state, but he sent him away
without putting him on the stand.

Mr. Keyes — "We did nGt send him away."
Mr. Harriman — "You subpoenaed him?"
Mr. Keyes — "Yes."

Mr. Harriman — "You did not put him on the stand?"
Mr. Keyes— "No."

Mr. Harriman — "Oh, you let him go back. You did not
send him. Yes, he knew the way home and you in your fair-
ness knew enough to keep him from telling the truth."

You knew, Mr. Keyes, that he had been with Perry for
one hour and a half, that he had dealt with him, showed
him the boat, explained the engine, showed him how to run
it, and you knew that he would say on oath that this defendant
is not the man.

I do not know just what idea of fairness thirteen years
as prosecutor developes in an aspirant to office, but I do know
that a number of fair and honorable men have been prevented
from taking the stand because they would not testify as the
fair prosecutor would have them testify.

Mr. Schmidt did not buy the "Peerless" letters. Mr. Nutter
sold the word "Peerless" to two men. He says Schmidt re-
sembles one man, but that man was stouter. He could not
identify Schmidt. The man had a round face with a droop
in his left eye. Mr. Schmidt's face •- -xot round and his eye

does not droop. That is a strange co-incidence. No one
thmks Bryson was guilty, but the man was stouter, much
fleshier, had a much rounder face, had a droop in his eye.
It is by far a better description of Bryson than it is of Schmidt.
This all come from the mouth of witnesses for the prosecu-
tion.

But listen, the witness says he had a light complexion and
sandy hair. Look at it. Look at Schmidt. Remember Bry-
son. Neither of them has a light complexion, and neither
has sandy hair.

How rapidly they ride over the high places. They em-
phasize the statement that one witness said that Schmidt
resembled him, or that a man said that Schmidt was the man,
but they fail to tell you what were the points of identifica-
tion. The gist of the matter does not lie in the fact that one
man says that this is the man or that he resembles him; but
It lies in the fact that the cheek bone was crushed, that his
eye was all right, that his hair was sandy, that his face was
round, that he was fleshier, that he was short and broad
shouldered. You must hold in your mind the facts pertain-
ing to his description, and not the mere statement that this
is or is not the man.

Again the man enters the store where he buys the letters.
The witness stated that two men came in and asked for let-
ters. He resembles the type of man. Why did not the pro-
secuting attorney in all his "sacred fairness" read to you
that the witness said he resembled the type of man. "I could
not say positively Schmidt resembles the man, not the eye; he
had a peculiar look in his face, not in his eye." Schmidt'has
nothing peculiar in his face, but his eye is faulty. "Not his
eye," but something peculiar about his face. Here is the
crushed cheek bone coming to the front again. But Schmidt's
cheek bone is not crushed.

Schmidt did not go to the cafe Miramar. Steuprich said,
"I just glanced at him. I only saw him in the dining room.
That is not the man — does not look to me like the man. There
was something the matter with the left side of his face."
This is the fourth witness that noticed the crushed bone.
Some say the bone was crushed and the eye was all right.
Some say the left side of his face was affected, not the eye.
Others say there was something peculiar with the left side of
the face.

Mr. Steuprich said, "He ain't the man I seen." The pro-
secuting attorney laughs at his ignorance and his pronuncia-
tion. His lack of education surely will not dicredit him.
That is his misfortune and should elicit our sympathy
and not our ridicule. He has suffered enough for want of
joys that education brings. Far be it from me to question
a man's integrity because his education was neglected. "He
IS not the man, he resembles him certainly. I just passed
him by. About my size. I could see him face to face, just
about my height." There is an essential fact in the descrip-
tion. There is another cheek bone fact. Thinking they would
catch him, the District Attorney had Schmidt step around to
compare his height with Steuprich. He never would have
done it if he had known that Schmidt was a head taller.
Steuprich was broad shouldered and looked to be as tall as
Schmidt. With all this testimony can you believe that Schmidt
was the man?

Mr. Brown, the man at the Howard Street dock said, "He
looked like he had been hit with a hammer." This is the fifth
man who noticed the crushed cheek bone.

Mr. McCall was one of the five. He defined the crushed
cheek bone with the greatest particularity. He defined his
own state of mind, and that he wondered how the man could

The Western Comrade

Page fifteen

have received such a blow vk'ithout leaving a scar. But he
said also that the eye was all right. This defect was observed
by five different men, all strangers to each other. There can
be no question but that man who purchased the dynamite,
and hired the boat, and bought the letters for the word
"Peerless" and tied the boat to the Howard Street wharf
"had an all right eye" and a "crushed cheek bone." The
physical defect that attracted the eyes of so many does not
mar the face of this defendant. This fact alone will open
the prison doors and let the defendant go free, with his sister
to their home.

The two women who saw the parties unload the dynamite
at the cottage in which it was stored say this defendant is
not the man. They did not observe him critically but they
were near him and they were positive that they would be
able to identify the man they saw.

Now let us consider the testimony of Mr. Phillips, the man
who was in charge of the powder works when the dynamite
was delivered on the boat "Peerless." I shall not dwell long
with this witness, but leave the analysis of his testimony to
Mr. Coghlan who examined him.

He testified before the Grand Jury some five years ago.
He stated to the Grand Jury that he did not take particular
notice of the man, that he only got a side view of his face
and that he was there where the powder was being loaded
only about two minutes and had no reason for suspicion. But
on this stand he stated that he saw the man square in the face
and was there twenty minutes; that he helped load the boat
and let the boxes down from the wharf with a rope; that he
was suspicious of the men. Can such a man be believed?

The man's anxiety to convict this defendant had no bounds.
He was an advocate and not an impartial witness. You will
remember how nervous and excited he was when he went out
of his way and and began to argue saying, "It must have
been true or J. B. McNamara would not have confessed."

Mr. Phillip stated that after the boxes were let down from
the wharf he said to the men, "You won't have much room
for ten boxes on your boat." They replied that they were
going to load them on the skiff that was behind. Before
the Grand Jury he stated that he was there two minutes and
went before the powder was loaded and that when he said,
"You won't have much room for ten boxes," he departed.
At this trial he stated that he was there twenty minutes and
went after the boxes were loaded. The quesion is whether
he went before or after the dynamite was loaded. Determine
the fact and you will know whether he is a true or a false
witness. The fact is already settled by the very sentence
he uttered. Listen, "You won't have much room for the
ten boxes." Was that sentence uttered before or after the
boxes were in the boat? Had the boxes already been in the
boat he would have said, "You have not much room for ten
boxes." When he spoke that sentence the boxes were still
on the wharf, and he said, "You won't have much room,"
when you place them there, is the thought. But immediately
upon making this statement he departed. Such is his tes-
timony before the Grand Jury. It was then fresh in his mind
and he was free from his great anxiety to convict any one.
He was merely telling his best recollection.

He told the Grand Jury that he was not suspicious; that
he only had a side view; that he did not notice particularly;
that he was only there two minutes; but now he states that
he was there twenty minutes; that he helped load the boat;
that he saw him square in the face; and that he was suspicious
of them. Would yow take a man's life or liberty on the tes-
timoriy of such a man. Have you not been told by the pro-
secuting attorney that when you find a man false in one thing
that you should mistrust him in all. The court in the instruc-
tions will tell you the same thing. A still higher authority,

your own minds and consciences command you to do the
same thing.

Human life and liberty are too sacred to be taken by the
word of one who is so anxious to convict that he cannot refrain
from argument while serving as witness. Such a witness is
either consciously or unconsciously false and his testimony
is unworthy of belief and should be altogether discarded.

So much for the question of identification. Were either
of you being tried instead of M. A. Schmidt you would feel
that in all fairness and justice such an identification is alto-
gether insufficient. Your heart and conscience could not
help insisting that at least the physical defects and marks
upon the face and the color of the hair should be the same.
You would feel that it would be nothing less than a crime
to convict a man of dark complexion when the real crimin-
al's hair was sandy or to convict a man whose cheek bones
were perfect when the criminal's cheek bone was crushed;
or to convict a man whose left eye was out when the real
criminal's eye was all right; or to convict a man who stood
five feet eleven when the real criminal was about five feet
seven or eight; and your feelings in such a case would be
righteous and holy.

Now let us go with this defendant from San Francisco to
Los Angeles. With all their effort and all their thousands of
dollars at their command and with an unlimited number of
detectives, they could find no trace of him in the South under
the name of Perry. Only one witness testified that he saw him
at Venice. This witness was contradicted by three witnesses
who testified that the defendant was never there under the
name of Perry.

Was Schmidt in Los Angeles? Yes, certainly he was.
When? He came in July and returned in the early part of
August. He was here under the name of M. A. Schmidt.
He so testified. We again open the door to the prosecution,
but they were afraid to enter. Not a question did they ask him
in regard to the whys and wherefores and his whereabouts
in Southern California. Again they were silent and their
only response was, "No questions."

Every one of you where disappointed when the District
Attorney failed to cross-question Schmidt. You expected it.
We courted it. They failed to do so. They failed because
they knew that he could satisfactorily explain every detail of
any question they might put to him.

Why did he come to Los Angeles? Why does every one who
visits the Coast come to Los Angeles if possible? He who fails
to see Los Angeles fails to see one of the gems of the Pacific
Coast. He had decided to return East and came to visit the
South before he departed.

One witness only could be found who testified that she knew
him by the name of Perry, and that she met him in Venice at
Mr. Johanson's house. She was contradicted by three witness-
es beside the testimony of Schmidt himself.

The failure to identify Schmidt as the purchaser of the dyn-
amite breaks all connection between J. B. Brice and the move-
ment on the Pacific Coast, and especially between him and
the Los Angeles strike of 1910.

That Brice was connected with the Eastern movement there
is no question. Nor is there any question as to his being in
Los Angeles. But that he was not directly or indirectly con-
nected with the Los Angeles movement is absolutely certain.
The methods pursued in the East by the McNamaras were
directly opposite to the methods employed here. In this one
fact lies the proof that the Los Angeles movement could not
have had a hand in this disaster. Theirs was a movement of
violence. The Los Angeles movement was political and peace-
ful in character.

["Was Schmidt Guihy" began in (he May issue. Back numbers
ten cents a copy.]

^=

fl^lfalfa Hay
Field not far
From the prop-
rly purchas-
sd by Llano
Colony in the
hlighlands of
western Louis-
iana.

Dairy Cattle rais-
ed in Louisiana
Highland District.

Threshing Oats
in Louisiana High-
land District.

Cattle grazing
on cut-over pine
lands of High-
d District of
Louisiana ; the
attle industry
promises great
profits.

Page eighteen

The Western Comrade

Current Problems i

y Walter Thomas Mills

Written Specially For the Western Comrade. Those Copying Please Give Credit.

The Created Problem of Them All

I

There are no prob-
All social problems

T was seen last month that effective dealing with

the current economic and political problems, requires

the joint action of the organized unions, farmers and

co-operative societies.

Any political movement in behalf of labor which is not

directly related to these organizations and responsible to the

workers through these organizations, cannot hope to deal

effectively with the problems of labor.

But how does it happen that there are such problems?
Provision is made for the common welfare by the joint use
of (1) the natural resources, of (2) industrial equipment in-
cluding a system of credits, of (3) organization and man-
agement, and of (4) labor.

The natural resources are abundant,
lems in connection with their production
relating to natural resources have to
do with the opportunity to use them,
not with any efforts to produce them.

The industrial equipment and the
possibilities of credit, representing
goods in transit or in process of pro-
duction, present no real difficulties in
the matter of efficiency.

The same is true of labor and hence
the earth is rich enough in natural re-
sources and the machinery of produc-
tion is effective enough and labor
numerous enough, skillful enough and
willing enough to produce enough for
all human needs and to spare.

For this reason, it follows that there
are no serious problems as related to
the productive possibilities of natural
resources, industrial equipment or la-
bor.

The one remaining factor involved
in provision for the common welfare is that of organization
and management. It is in this field where all the problems
in economics and in politics arise.

It is not a matter of the creation of more natural resources.
It is a matter of the organization and management of natural
resources already and abundantly provided by the gift of
nature.

It is not a matter of the necessary production of new
machinery in production, transportation, manufacture, storage
or exchange. In all these matters, the machinery provided
is so effective that the real problem is not one of producing
better machinery but of providing the organization and man-
agement which is indispensable to its proper use.

It is not a matter of providing additional labor. It is a
matter of such organization and management as shall pro-
vide useful employment all the year around for all able-bodied
people, and all these workers should be made skilled workers,
should be equipped mth the best possible machinery, should
be provided with free access to the natural resources and
should be given for their own use the net total products of
their own labor.

But all this is a matter, not of providing more labor, but
of better organization and management.

Is it not perfectly evident that the great social and political

'T'HE greatest social problem is
•^ one of organization and man-
agement, and the greatest problem
in organization and management is
how to relate the personal interests
of the manager to the common
good, so that he shall become in
very truth, "the greatest servant of
all."

lUlliiillllllllllillliiliiill

problems are altogether questions of organization and manage-
ment? And hence, the greatest problem of all, is how to
provide this organization and management.

It was said above that all workers should be given the total
product of their labor but of all forms of labor at this time,
the labor which is most sorely needed, is the particular labor
required in organization and management.

With this work effectively done, all other work is easy. With
this management once provided, all other social problems
vanish.

Such a management must be made answerable to all those
whose interests are involved. The fruits of the services ren-
dered by them for the common welfare, must be made avail-
able for the common need.

Now, the authority to manage rests on the ability to invest.
This ability to invest does not rest on the capacity or the dis-
position to serve the common good, but entirely upon the
private monopoly control, by a few, of the common needs
of all.

For this reason, the task set for
every manager is not one of service
for the common good of all, but of
service to the few who monopolize the
natural resources and industrial equip-
ments upon which the life of all de-
pends, and necessarily to the disad-
vantage of the many who are depend-
ent, and to the unearned and unde-
served advantage of the few who are
masters. Under current conditions,
the more capable and effective the
management, the more serious the so-
cial disaster. The manager is not now
employed to serve the common good
of all, but to serve the special inter-
ests of the few as against the most
vital needs of all.

The greatest social problem is one
of organization and management, and
tlie greatest problem in organization and management is how
to relate the personal interests of the manager to the common
good so that he shall become, in very truth, "the greatest
servant of all."

Now the greatest managerial ability is chained to the neces-
sity of serving the interests of those who render no service
but who live as parasites on the civic body, and all its
energies are required to further the interests of the parasites
at the expense of the common good.

How different would be the situation were the manager to
come to his place by promotion, not for efficiency in serving
the parasite, but for efficiency in promoting the common good.
How different the situation if the tenure of his position
rested, not on what he could get out of the workers for the
benefit of the masters, but on what he could devise and con-
trive for the benefit of all.

The organizations of the labor unions, of the farmers and of
the co-operative societies, are, at least, the beginnings of
forms of organization in the processes of primary production,
manufacture, storage and delivery.

These organizations can succeed only as efficiency in their
management shall be developed and finally, as they shall be
(Continued on page 30)

The Western Coi

a d <

Page nineteen

The Sociali^ Movement in Japan i

y S. Katayama

Written Specially For the Western Comrade. Those Copying Please Give Credit.

_ very promising future for the Socialist movement in Japan.

T Party of Japan was or- From the viewpoint of the government, the Socialist is nothing
ganized and its mani- but a traitor, and he is so treated by the authorities. For one
to vote for a "traitor" candidate is, indeed, an act of courage
and determination.

Why is the Japanese government so severe on the Socialists,
and why does it treat them so cruelly? The answer is that it
is to subject the growing proletariat. The government is afraid
of the increasing power of labor and of the Socialist move-
ment. It desires to sacrifice every national interest to im-
perialism and militarism. Imperialism is the enemy of labor
and Socialism. A victory in war with a foreign nation means
a military despotism at home.

Japan twice won a victory over China and Russia. The
result has been a powerful class of military bureaucrats who
sacrifice every sacred interest of the nation to commercial ex-
pansion. The government has been trying to increase the
size of the army and navy, until at the present moment its
people and resources are staggering under the burden of supt-
porting them. The imperialism of Japan ignores the welfare
of the proletariat and exploits it as
much as possible. This is the chief
reason why the government so bitterly
opposes the growth of the Socialist
movement in Japan.

The present ministry of Count
Terauchichi is the most imperialistic
and autocratic Japan has ever had
since the promulgation of the consti-
tution. This ministry is extremely
afraid of the Socialists, as it is its
prime object to subject the proletariat
as long as possible.

Thus, in spite of the oppression, the
Socialists are trying admirably to
make as much headway with their
agitation as is possible under the un-
favorable circumstances. Their work
must necessarily be of a more or less

HE Social Democratic
Party of Japan was or-
ganized and its mani-
' festo published on the
twentieth of May, 1901. Six
hundred members, including the
writer, were associated with the
organization. This party was
suppressed by the government
on the day of its birth. But the
Socialist propaganda was unre-
stricted, so that, in spite of the
suppression of the party, the
philosophy spread rapidly
throughout Japan. The Social-
ists made a great fight during the
Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5,
and made many sympathizers.
In the summer of 1906, the Socialist Party of Japan was

reorganized in Tokyo, and in a few months several hundred

members were enrolled, and all indica-
tions pointed to a movement of growth

and .'Activity. The party had a Social-
ist daily in Tokyo in the spring of

1907, but it was quickly suppressed

by the authorities. Since that time

the Socialist Party legally was never

permitted to exist until the present

time.

Socialists in Japan have had hard,

discouraging living the last ten years.

Many have suffered prison life.

Twelve have served life-terms for their

agitation of revolutionary doctrines.

Six have died in prison. Twelve have

been hung. There are many in prison

at the present moment for persisting

in Socialist propaganda. Probably

the treatment of the Socialists has been

PROVING that the inevitable
trend of industrial development
is toward Socialism, the story of the
Socialist movement in Japan is of
unusual interest just at this time
when the paramount question is:
"What Will Japan Do?" Every-
where people are turning toward
the Socialists for solution of the
world's troubles. What the So-
cialists of Japan are striving to do
is of utmost importance.

harsher and more cruel than that in any other country on
earth. Notwithstanding this constant suprpession, oppression,
intimidation and rigorous punishment, however, scattered
throughout Japan there are some seven thousands of Socialists.
Many of these once active in the cause, quit for the sake of
living. The remainder are true martyrs and bravely face all
persecution that may be directed against them.

At the time of the last parliamentary election, the Socialists
ran a candidate. Comrade Toshihiko Sakai assumed the res-
ponsibility in initiating this move. Five campaign meetings
were held but all were broken up by the forces of the brutal
police. Following this, the Socialists were entirely suppressed,
although the constitution guarantees them the right of liberty
and freedom of speech. Moreover, in spite of the specific
provision in the election law which allows candidates to hold
campaign meetings during the two months previous to the
day of election, the platform and manifesto of the Party were
suppressed. Even then. Comrade Sakai received twenty-five
votes.

There are about one and a half million voters in Japan out
of a population of seventy million souls. This number is re-
stricted by property quahfications and educational tests, so
that the proletarians are utterly excluded from the franchise.
To get twenty-five votes under such circumstances shows a

clandestine nature, as they are not allowed to agitate openly
among the workers. The fact remains, however, that in spite
of the popularity of the Socialist philosophy and the extreme
difficulty of gaining the ear of the public, the Socialists are
growing in numbers.

There is a marked sign of the awakening of the workers in
Japan since the beginning of the European war. Frequently
strikes in the various industries within Japan and the in-
spiring lesson of the Russian Revolution have made a profound
impression on the workers, thus showing that there will doubt-
less soon occur some changes for the better. The pressure
from the outside is so great, that further resistance is futile.
The lot of the proletariat under the greedy exploitation of
modern capitalism, will continue to improve until the workers
en masse will rise and throw off the heavy burden laid upon
them for generations.

KINDLY GIVE US CREDIT

We observe that many magazines are lifting copy bodily from our
publications, some without giving us credit for the same. We are glad
to have our matter copied, but as we secure much of our stuff at the
cost of considerable time and labor, not to say money, we deem it only
fair that contemporaries credit us with all matter that they reprint from
our publications. LLANO PUBLICATIONS.

Page twenty

The Western Comrade

A Nice Girl ^^ ^ary AHen

Written Specially For the Western Comrade. Those Copying Please Give Credit.

AVID BOLTON was considered "queer" by the neigh-
boring ranchers. In the first place it was rumored
that he was a "Free Thinker," and while none could
have told just what a "Free Thinker" is, still all
would have agreed that it is something particularly mysterious
and deadly; in the second place he kept a heathen Chinaman
to do his housework and help care for his motherless boy; in
the third, he received through the mails certain literature which
set the village postmistress to whispering; and in the fourth,
his three-room frame house, instead of being lined with paper
was lined with books.

But the Prewitts, who lived on the ranch adjoining, found
a good neighbor in him, always ready to help in irrigating or
other emergencies, and in return Mrs. Prewitt did what
motherly favors